THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
FRANK  J.  KLINGBERG 


MEXICO  AND  THE  CARIBBEAN 


MEXICO  AND  THE  CARIBBEAN 


CLARK  UNIVERSITY  ADDRESSES 


EDITED  BY 

GEORGE  H.   BLAKESLEE 

Professor  of  History  and  International  Relations,  Clark  University 


NEW  YORK 

G.  E.  STECHERT  AND  COMPANY 
1920 


COPYRIGHT 
CLARK  UNIVERSITY 


COMPOSED  AND  PRINTED  AT  TUB 

WAVERLY  PRESS 

BY  TH»  WILLIAMS  &  WILKINS  COMPAHY 

BALTIMORE,  MD.,  U.  8-  A. 


College 
Library 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION.    George  H.  Blakeslee vii 

MEXICO 
FUNDAMENTAL  FACTORS 

I.  ARE  THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE  CAPABLE  OF  GOVERNING  THEM- 
SELVES? Honorable  T.  Esquivel  Obreg6n,  Minister  of 
Finance  in  the  Cabinet  of  Mexico,  1913;  Lecturer  on  Inter- 
national Law,  Columbia  University 1 

II.  THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE.    Frederick  Starr,  of  the  University  of 

Chicago 15 

III.  UPON  THE  INDIAN  DEPENDS  MEXICO'S  FUTURE.    James  Car- 

son, National  Councillor  of  the  American  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  Mexico;  Formerly  Chief  of  the  Associated 
Press  Service  in  Mexico 35 

IV.  THE  FACTOR  OF  HEALTH  IN  MEXICAN  CHARACTER.    Ellsworth 

Huntington,  Ph.D.,  Research  Associate,  Yale  University; 
Formerly  Research  Associate  of  the  Carnegie  Institution 
for  Climatic  Investigations  in  Mexico  and  Central  America  44 

SPECIFIC  PROBLEMS 

V.  THE  MEXICAN  OIL  SITUATION.  Frederic  R.  Kellogg,  General 
Counsel  of  the  Pan  American  Petroleum  and  Transport 

Company 54 

VI.  THE  RAILROAD  SITUATION  IN  MEXICO.    A.  W.  Donly,  formerly 

Trade  Commissioner  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  in  Mexico    73 
VII.  LABOR  IN  MEXICO.    James  Lord,  Treasurer,  Pan  American 
Federation  of  Labor;  Member  of  Labor  Commission  to 

visit  Mexico,  1918 91 

VIII.  RECONSTRUCTION  PROBLEMS  IN  MEXICO.  E.  D.  Trowbridge, 
General  Manager  of  the  Mexico  Company;  formerly  Gen- 
eral Manager,  Mexican  Light  and  Power  Company,  Mexico 
City 106 

RECENT  CONDITIONS 

IX.  RECENT  CONDITIONS  IN  MEXICO.  Francis  R.  Taylor,  Chair- 
man of  the  recent  Commission  to  visit  Friends'  Missions 
in  Mexico . .  .  119 


J,?  X 


VI  CONTENTS 

THE  NEW  MEXICAN  GOVERNMENT 

X.   MEXICO    AND     THE    PRESENT    REVOLUTION.      .Jnlm     VaVESOUr 

Noel,  President  of  the  Noel  News  Service 132 

XI.  GREETINGS  TO  THE  WORLD  FROM  THE  NEW  LIBERAL  CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL PARTY  IN  MEXICO.  Sefior  Manuel  de  la  Pena, 
Commercial  Agent  in  New  York  of  the  Liberal  Constitu- 
tional Government  of  Mexico 141 

AMERICAN  POLICY 

XII.  How  TO  RESTORE  PEACE  IN  MEXICO.  Honorable  Henry  Lane 
Wilson,  Ambassador  of  the  United  States  to  Mexico,  1909- 
1913 147 

XIII.  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  POLICY  FOR  MEXICO.    Roger  W.  Babson, 

President  of  the  Babson  Statistical  Organization;  Member 
of  the  Federal  Central  American  Commission  of  1916 ....  166 

XIV.  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  LATIN  AMERICA.    John  F.  Moors, 

LL.D.,  Senior  Member,  Moors  and  Cabot,  Bankers;  Presi- 
dent, Boston  Associated  Charities 162 

XV.  COMMON  SENSE  IN  FOREIGN  POLICY.    Edwin  M.  Borchard, 

Professor  of  Law,  Yale  University 166 

THE  CARIBBEAN 

XVI.  THE  CARIBBEAN  POLICY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  William  R. 
Shepherd,  Ph.D.,  L.H.D.,  Professor  of  History,  Columbia 

University 184 

XVII.  THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  INTERVENTION  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO 
AND  HAITI.  Judge  Otto  Schoenrich,  formerly  President 
of  the  Nicaragua  Mixed  Claims  Commission;  Connected 
with  the  Reorganization  of  Dominican  Finances;  Author 
of  "Santo  Domingo" 206 

XVIII.  AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO,  HAITI,  AND 
VIRGIN  ISLANDS.  Colonel  George  C.  Thorpe,  United 
States  Marine  Corps,  Recently  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Bri- 
gade of  Marines  in  Occupation  of  the  Dominican  Republic  224 
XIX.  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  THE  CARIBBEAN.  Samuel  Guy 
Inman,  Executive  Secretary  of  the  Committee  on  Coop- 
eration in  Latin  America 248 

XX.  THE  CENTRAL  AMERICAN  REPUBLICS  AND  THEIR  PROBLEMS. 
Webster  E.  Browning,  Ph.D.,  Educational  Secretary, 
Committee  on  Cooperation  in  Latin  America;  formerly 

President  of  the  American  College  in  Chile 277 

XXI.  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN. 
Jacinto  Lopez,  Editor  of  La  Reforma  Social;  author  "The 
War  on  the  Pacific"  and  many  essays  on  American  and 
International  Questions 301 

XXII.  AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM."     Kirby  Thomas,  Consulting 

Mining  Engineer,  New  York 314 

XXIII.  PORTO  Rico  AS  A  NATIONAL  PROBLEM.  Pedro  Cap6  Rodri- 
guez, Spanish  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of  Interna- 
tional Law;  Member  of  the  Bar  of  Porto  Rico 333 


INTRODUCTION 

The  chapters  in  this  volume  were  first  given  as  addresses 
during  the  Conference  upon  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean, 
at  Clark  University,  May  20,  21  and  22,  1920.  This  was 
the  seventh  Conference  upon  International  Relations  held 
at  the  University.  First  organized  in  1909,  they  met 
annually  until  the  outbreak  of  the  world  war,  after  which 
they  were  discontinued  until  the  present  year. 

The  aim  of  the  University  in  organizing  these  sessions  has 
been  to  do  its  part  in  bringing  about  a  more  intelligent  under- 
standing of  our  international  problems,  a  more  sympathetic 
appreciation  of  the  attitude  of  other  peoples,  and  a  keener 
realization  of  our  own  international  duties.  In  presenting 
the  various  and  different  sides  of  international  questions, 
and  in  emphasizing  the  points  of  view  held  by  others,  which 
are  often  different  from  the  popular  views  held  among  our- 
selves, the  University  believes  that  it  is  fulfilling  an  obliga- 
tion which  it  owes  not  only  to  its  own  students  but  to  the 
wider  community  of  which  it  is  a  part. 

If  democracy  is  to  control  foreign  relations,  it  has  been 
well  said  that  democracy  should  know  something  about  the 
subject.  And  what  more  helpful  service,  along  this  line, 
can  a  University  render  than  to  bring  together  a  large  group 
of  experts  upon  some  foreign  country,  or  closely  connected 
group  of  countries,  men  who  represent  not  only  our  own  but 
other  lands,  owners  and  organizers  of  big  business  enter- 
prises, missionaries,  educators,  investigators,  authors,  past 
and  present  government  officials — and  give  them  a  forum 
from  which  to  present  the  facts,  as  they  see  them,  and  a 
recommendation  of  a  national  policy  based  upon  these  facts? 

Since  the  world  war  has  ceased  to  dominate  our  thought 
and  focus  our  entire  attention  upon  Europe,  it  is  now  pos- 
sible to  study  the  international  relations  of  our  own  hemi- 
sphere, the  most  important  of  which  are  those  connected 
with  the  two  closely  related  fields  which  were  chosen  for 
this  Conference,  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean. 

vii 


Vlli  INTRODUCTION 

Mexico  admittedly  presents  a  genuine  problem,  but  one 
due  primarily  to  the  inherent  weakness  and  political  insta- 
bility of  the  country.  How  may  it  develop  into  a  law- 
abiding,  capable  nation,  with  an  effective,  educated,  reli- 
able middle  class?  In  the  following  chapters  various  and 
conflicting  proposals  are  presented.  A  former  member  of 
the  Mexican  cabinet  urges  that  the  only  hope  lies  in  grant- 
ing complete  power  to  the  small  educated  upper  class  in  the 
country;  others  state  that  upon  the  Indian  depends  Mexico's 
future;  while  some,  even  including  a  few  Mexicans,  believe 
that  the  present  situation  can  be  remedied  only  by  outside 
help.  But  if  the  United  States  undertakes  to  settle  the 
Mexican  situation,  what  means  shall  it  adopt?  Armed  in- 
tervention and  the  creation  of  a  buffer  state  in  Northern 
Mexico  is  suggested  by  one  of  the  Conference  speakers,  a 
distinguished  diplomat;  financial  and  economic  pressure,  is 
urged  by  others;  a  widespread  system  of  education,  lasting 
for  a  hundred  years,  is  the  general  proposal  of  the  American 
educators  and  missionaries  from  Mexico;  while  assistance 
along  sanitary  lines,  in  order  to  lower  the  death  rate,  lessen 
sickness,  and  increase  efficiency,  is  still  another  solution. 
The  outstanding  fact  is  that  there  is  a  genuine  Mexican 
problem,  but  that  no  general  agreement  exists  as  to  its 
proper  solution. 

In  the  Caribbean  region — Central  America  and  the  islands 
of  the  Caribbean  Sea — the  United  States  has  made  an 
extension  of  actual  power,  within  the  last  twenty  years, 
which  has  been  one  of  the  most  striking  features  in  the 
whole  history  of  American  expansion;  yet  our  country  seems 
relatively  unconscious  of  this  fact.  Since  1898  it  has  secured 
sovereignty  over  Porto  Rico  and  the  Virgin  Islands,  and 
practical  sovereignty  over  the  Panama  Canal  Zone;  it  has 
obtained  a  definite  protectorate  over  the  republics  of  Cuba, 
Panama  and  Haiti,  and  a  financial  protectorate  over  Santo 
Domingo;  today  it  is  hi  full  military  occupation  of  Haiti 
and  Santo  Domingo,  and  has  a  garrison  of  marines  in  the 
capital  of  Nicaragua.  This  extension  of  power  has  been 
particularly  rapid  during  the  past  few  years;  so  much  so 
that  many  European  observers  believe  and  many  Latin 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

Americans  fear  that  the  United  States  is  in  the  midst  of 
an  expansion  in  this  region  which  will  continue  until  it 
dominates,  either  as  sovereign  or  overlord,  all  the  islands  of 
the  Caribbean  and  all  the  republics  of  Central  America. 
Do  the  American  people  wish  this  expansion  to  continue? 
In  fact  do  we  have  any  definite  policy  for  the  Caribbean? 
A  distinguished  Latin  American  diplomat  once  said  to  the 
writer:  "The  United  States  ought  to  have  a  policy  in  the 
Caribbean;  now  it  can  do  anything  it  wishes  there;  but  in 
thirty  years  other  nations  may  be  strong  enough  to  prevent 
it."  A  keen  analysis  of  the  possible  policies  which  may  be 
adopted,  with  the  reasons  in  favor  of  each,  is  given  in  the 
opening  chapter  of  the  Caribbean  section  of  this  volume. 

But  whatever  general  policy  be  adopted,  the  political  in- 
stability throughout  much  of  this  region,  as  well  as  the  inter- 
ests of  the  United  States,  both  economic  and  military,  will 
undoubtedly  force  this  country  for  many  years  to  come  to 
exercise  a  certain  amount  of  supervision  over  the  Caribbean 
and  to  undertake  occasional  intervention.  It  is  important 
however  that  both  supervision  and  intervention  should  be 
carried  out  in  accord  with  the  best  American  traditions,  not 
only  of  efficiency  but  of  regard  for  the  well-being  and  even 
the  susceptibilities  of  the  peoples  affected.  It  is  at  least 
doubtful  whether  this  has  been  done;  many  of  the  Latin 
Americans,  as  is  clearly  shown  by  certain  of  the  following 
chapters,  regard  the  United  States  as  actuated  by  a  thoroughly 
imperialistic  policy.  The  difficulty  of  judging  fairly  the 
acts  of  American  officials  is  shown  by  the  difference  in  the 
evidence  presented  at  the  Conference  regarding  the  naval 
administration  }of  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo.  Three  writ- 
ers, each  of  them  entitled  to  rank  as  an  expert,  present  three 
different  pictures:  one  condemns  the  administration  se- 
verely, another  believes  it  to  be  notably  excellent,  while 
the  third  balances  failings  against  striking  achievements. 

However  difficult  it  may  be  to  learn  the  actual  situation 
in  the  Caribbean,  as  well  as  in  Mexico,  it  is  nevertheless  a 
task  which  should  be  undertaken  by  the  thoughtful  element 
of  the  American  democracy.  To  permit  public  sentiment 
to  exert  its  proper  influence,  both  in  determining  American 


X  INTRODUCTION 

policy  and  in  insisting  upon  the  highest  standards  in  Ameri- 
can administration,  there  is  need  of  much  definite  informa- 
tion and  of  a  frank  discussion  of  national  amis  by  men, 
broadminded  and  sympathetic,  who  are  themselves  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  the  problems  involved. 

To  the  distinguished  contributors  who  have  given  both 
definite  information  and  frank  discussion  in  the  chapters  of 
this  volume  the  University  wishes  to  express  its  grateful 
appreciation.  It  is  their  willing  cooperation  which  has 
made  possible  both  the  Conference  upon  Mexico  and  the 
Caribbean  and  the  publication  of  these  addresses. 

GEORGE  H.  BLAKESLEE. 

Clark  University, 
November  18,  1920. 


ARE  THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE  CAPABLE  OF 
GOVERNING  THEMSELVES 

By  Honorable  T.  Esquivel  Obregon,  Minister  of  Finance  in  the 

Cabinet  of  Mexico,  1913;  Lecturer  on  International 

Law,  Columbia  University 

The  question:  Are  the  Mexican  people  capable  of  self- 
government?  In  the  light  of  present  facts  and  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  country  from  her  independence  from  Spam  a 
century  ago,  it  seems  to  require  a  negative  answer,  because 
during  that  period  there  was  only  about  thirty  years  of 
peace  which  came  under  the  autocratic  government  of 
General  Porfirio  Diaz. 

I  intend,  however,  to  demonstrate  that  the  Mexican 
people  can  govern  themselves,  and  that  all  the  restless  life 
of  Mexico  is  due  to  social  factors  which  can  be  controlled 
and  must  be  if  we  ever  shall  have  peace  and  orderly  prog- 
ress; if  we  ever  have  to  meet  our  obligations  to  the  world, 
and  the  responsibilities  inherent  to  our  geographical  posi- 
tion, and  to  the  wealth  lying  in  our  soil. 

In  order  to  support  my  conclusion  let  me  begin  by  stating 
facts  which  nobody  can  deny : 

FIRST  FACT 

All  Americans  who  have  been  in  Mexico,  as  serious  ob- 
servers, can  bear  witness  to  the  statement  that  there  are  in 
Mexico  intelligent  lawyers  who  would  refuse  their  support 
to  any  cause,  no  matter  how  promising  of  high  fees  and 
compensation,  whenever  they  see  that  justice  would  be 
hurt  thereby;  physicians  who  are  not  business  men,  and  who 
know  how  to  combine  science  and  charity;  merchants  who 
have  laboriously  built  up  fortunes,  without  any  one  observ- 
ing that  they  defaulted  on  their  obligations — not  even  now, 
when  the  revolution  has  destroyed  so  many  fortunes  honestly 


2  T.   ESQUIVEL   OBREG6N 

won,  and  affords  a  pretext  for  defaulting;  business  men  who 
show  executive  ability,  v/hich  is  one  of  the  greatest  needs 
of  a  good  ruler;  and  farmers,  hard  workers,  who  live  a  simple 
life  and  are  contented  when  they  leave  for  future  genera- 
tions a  new  dam  or  a  new  ditch  for  the  irrigation  of  their 
land,  a  new  plot  reclaimed  for  cultivation,  or  a  new  tree  by 
the  roadside  for  the  relief  of  the  traveler.  Finally,  I  do 
not  know  of  any  Mexican  who  does  not  love  his  country, 
even  though  that  love  may  be  misguided  or  overshadowed 
by  passions  of  a  less  elevated  character;  it  is  a  love  which 
is  everywhere  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  hi  spite  of  the 
great  sufferings  and  misery  of  Mexico  at  the  present  tune, 
and  of  the  benefits  which  may  be  derived  from  naturaliza- 
tion as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  I  do  not  know  of  any 
Mexican  who  has  asked  for  his  first  papers  in  this  country, 
because,  while  we  all  admire  the  United  States,  we  cannot 
help  feeling  an  irresistible  desire  that  there,  where  our  fore- 
fathers lie,  there  our  remains  may  be  united  with  theirs 
forever  in  the  bosom  of  the  same  mother  country. 

If  these  virtues  are  the  crucial  test  of  a  man  capable  of 
undertaking  the  government  of  a  country,  we  have  plenty 
of  men  who  possess  them,  who  know  how  to  govern  and  how 
to  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  love  of  it  if  need  there  be. 
If  I  had  the  tune,  I  could  tell  you  wonderful  tales  of  sacrifice 
for  the  good  of  our  people  and  for  the  glory  of  Mexico. 

SECOND  FACT 

The  second  undeniable  fact  is  that  Mexico  was  hi  peace 
during  three  centuries  under  the  Spanish  rule.  Much  has 
been  said  to  discredit  that  rule:  to  think  of  the  Spanish 
colonial  system  is  to  bring  to  the  mind  of  many  persons  tales 
of  slavery,  humiliations  and  atrocities ;  tales  of  inquisition  and 
of  denial  of  all  rights  that  we  think  are  most  sacred.  But  it 
is  my  first  duty  to  warn  you  against  such  misconceptions 
of  the  Spanish  regime,  because  those  prejudices  which  were 
first  spread  by  malice,  are,  in  my  opinion,  the  source  of  all 
the  mistakes  made  in  the  United  States  in  its  relations  with 


ABE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVERNING  3 

Mexico,  and  the  most  abundant  spring  of  evil   for    the 
latter. 

Many  persons  have  heard  of  the  submission  under  which 
Spain  kept  the  Indians,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  heard  of 
the  submission  under  which  the  Indians  were  accustomed  to 
live  from  tune  immemorial  under  the  sway  of  their  native 
chiefs,  and  they  do  not  know  that  some  form  of  subordina- 
tion was  necessary  in  order  to  make  the  Indians  who  were 
accustomed  to  it,  contribute  to  the  formation  of  the  new 
society.  They  seem  not  to  have  heard  that  the  Indians  had 
to  give  their  very  flesh  for  the  feasts  of  their  chiefs,  and  that 
Spain  rescued  them  from  this  cannibalistic  tribute.  They 
do  not  seem  to  have  heard  either  that  Mexico  was  popu- 
lated, except  in  a  small  portion  of  her  southern  territory, 
by  hunting  tribes,  and  that  Spain  organized  these  tribes 
into  agricultural  and  industrial  towns;  that  Spain  incorpo- 
rated the  prominent  Indian  families  into  the  Spanish  nobil- 
ity hi  order  to  make  a  practical  application  of  the  Christian 
precept  which  blots  out  all  differences  of  race,  and  makes 
men  equal  over  the  world;  that  from  the  beginning  of  the 
conquest  many  Indians  were  educated  by  the  Spaniards 
and  distinguished  themselves  among  the  learned;  and  that 
the  Spanish  language  was  so  widely  spread  that  now,  wher- 
ever you  go  in  Mexico,  you  hear  Spanish,  and  in  most  of 
the  regions  the  Indians  have  even  forgotten  that  their 
tribe  had  a  dialect  of  its  own.  They  seem  not  to  have  heard 
that  the  first  printing  press  of  America  was  established  in 
Mexico,  and  the  second  University  of  America  was  founded 
in  Mexico;  that  the  rich  classes  of  Mexico  in  the  Colonial 
period  could  via  with  the  richest  of  the  world,  and  that  the 
Mexican  archives  are  filled  with  the  records  of  their  endow- 
ments for  the  civilization  of  the  natives  and  for  the  welfare 
of  the  people;  that  the  monetary  unit  of  America,  India  and 
China  was  the  Mexican  peso,  showing  the  economic  world 
power  acquired  by  the  country  under  the  Spanish  regime; 
and  that  the  land  property  of  the  Indians  was  preserved 
intact — nay  it  was  even  increased  by  Spain.  If  those  per- 
sons had  merely  read  the  statements  made  by  impartial 


scientific  observers,  such  as  Humboldt,  they  would  know 
what  Mexico  contributed  in  those  times  to  the  world  in 
matters  of  character  and  culture;  they  would  be  able  to 
understand  why  a  peaceful  life  was  lived  in  that  country 
in  previous  epochs,  when  the  Spanish  customs  and  methods 
were  not  spoiled  by  unwise  imitations. 

How  can  these  facts  be  reconciled  with  the  tales  of  atroci- 
ties so  generally  spread. 

You,  in  organizing  this  wonderful  Commonwealth,  did 
not  experience  any  of  the  difficulties  which  confronted  Spain. 
You  could  build  up  a  new  society  upon  a  basis  of  freedom 
and  democratic  cooperation,  because  you  had  an  homogene- 
ous cultural  ground,  the  same  European  mind.  You  created, 
we  may  say,  a  European  freedom,  since  you  fought  the  In- 
dian almost  to  his  complete  extinction,  and  discouraged  the 
political  activities  of  the  negro,  where  those  activities  could 
be  effective,  until  you  have  practically  kept  the  negro  a 
merely  passive  element  in  your  political  organization.  You 
therefore  reared  your  building  entirely  to  your  own  satis- 
faction, without  experiencing  any  of  those  inconveniences 
which  confront  the  engineer  who  undertakes  to  adapt  an 
old  building  intended  originally  for  a  tenement  house,  into 
a  big  modern  factory. 

Spam  followed  an  entirely  different  policy.  She  tried  by 
all  means  to  save  the  Indians  from  the  clash  with  a  stronger 
race,  to  bring  them  up  to  modern  culture  by  slow  evolution, 
through  the  only  possible  way — discipline;  and,  in  order  to 
safeguard  their  civil  rights  and  material  interests,  Spain  with- 
drew from  them,  temporarily,  the  political  franchises,  except 
in  reference  to  town  government. 

When  Mexico  was  open  to  free  trade  with  other  coun- 
tries, Europeans  as  well  as  Anglo-Americans  rushed  into  it, 
and  they  were  disappointed  with  what  they  saw.  They 
saw  there  a  peculiar  society,  a  preposterous  organization,  a 
combination  of  childish  mentality  with  vices  which  ap- 
peared like  decadence;  most  of  the  people  entirely  ignorant; 
some,  although  possessing  a  more  or  less  advanced  education, 
were  more  inclined  to  display  their  knowledge  as  a  token  of 
superiority  than  as  a  moral  and  intellectual  asset  and  prac- 


AEE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVEKNING  5 

tical  social  force;  and,  finally,  a  group  of  persons  really  re- 
fined and  mentally  strong  who  were  trying  in  vain  to  infuse 
common  sense  and  good  judgment  into  the  public  adminis- 
tration. Those  foreigners,  as  a  rule,  did  not  go  beyond  their 
observation  of  present  facts;  they  did  not  realize  that  that 
state  of  affairs  was  the  natural  resultant  of  two  opposite 
forces,  the  European  culture,  and  the  Indian  culture  which 
had  been  fighting  each  other  during  three  centuries,  and 
that  to  have  arrived  at  that  point  had  been  a  wonderful 
achievement  on  the  part  of  Spain;  they,  on  the  contrary, 
concluded  that  the  Spanish  system  of  colonization  had  been 
a  complete  failure,  that  all  that  was  Spanish  had  to  be 
swept  away;  and  the  Anglo-Americans  thought,  furthermore, 
that  the  only  remedy  which  could  produce  a  quick  relief 
was  the  application  of  the  principles  of  democracy — that 
same  democracy  which  in  the  United  States  had  never  been 
the  rule  of  the  Indians  or  the  negroes  or  any  other  race  but 
the  Europeans.  They  did  not  stop  to  think  that  the  Indi- 
ans in  their  own  country  were  left  aside,  dispossessed  and 
dislodged,  abandoned  in  their  primitive  savagery;  and  there- 
fore, they  were  unable  to  appreciate  the  painstaking  task 
of  Spain  in  suppressing  cannibalism,  in  teaching  a  Christian- 
like  culture  and  religion,  in  bringing  up  those  people  to  that 
semi-civilization. 

I  insist  on  this  fact  because  in  my  opinion  the  injustice 
done  to  Spain,  in  not  recognizing  that  during  her  rule  a 
constant  work  of  civilization  was  going  on  in  her  colonies, 
with  a  liberality  that  would  be  surprising  to  many,  is  a  mis- 
take which  constitutes  a  real  cancer  which  eats  into  all  your 
system  of  thinking  and  dealing  with  the  Spanish  American 
countries;  and  which  has  been  dangerous  to  us,  and  may 
produce  many  misunderstandings  resulting  in  actual  damage 
to  your  trade  and  commerce  with  our  countries.  I  regard 
myself  as  a  real  and  sincere  friend  of  the  United  States,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  real  Mexican  patriot,  in  warning  you 
against  these  misrepresentations. 


6  T.  ESQTJIVEL  OBKEG6N 

THIED  FACT 

I  have  said  that  Spain  instead  of  granting  political  rights 
to  uneducated  people,  gave  them  ample  protection  in  their 
material  interests  and  placed  them  under  strict  discipline. 
This  system  naturally  produced  abuses  on  the  part  of  the 
superior  race,  almost  inevitable  as  the  result  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest;  but  in  order  to  reduce  these  abuses  to  a  mini- 
mum so  that  they  would  not  be  a  grave  obstacle  in  the  cul- 
tural development  of  the  country,  the  king  of  Spain  was 
scrupulously  careful  in  the  selection  of  his  officials;  he  gave 
to  Mexico  statesmen  of  the  highest  intellectual  and  moral 
character  who  ever  ruled  her.  Of  the  64  viceroys  in  Mexico 
during  three  centuries,  no  less  than  twenty  could  be  cited 
as  models  of  statesmanship;  the  civic  virtues  which  they 
displayed,  those  virtues  which  were  responsible  for  their 
success  and  for  the  peace  of  three  centuries,  were  honesty, 
Justice  and  modesty.  Modesty  in  a  ruler  is  the  strongest 
guaranty  for  the  people  that  conditions  of  living  and  social 
organization  will  be  studied  humbly  and  attentively,  and 
that  dangerous  experimental  innovations  will  be  prevented, 
when  they  are  not  warranted. 

i 

FOURTH  FACT 

The  fourth  undeniable  fact  is  that  General  Porfirio  Diaz 
ruled  in  peace  during  thirty  years.  He  went  into  power  by 
a  revolution  backed  by  the  intellectual  and  liberal,  as  well 
as  by  the  sound  conservative  elements  of  Mexico.  The 
reason  for  this  support  is  very  simple :  when  General  Diaz  en- 
tered the  city  of  Mexico,  after  defeating  the  imperialist 
forces  of  Maximilian,  he  showed  great  moderation,  and  also 
at  the  same  tune,  great  tolerance  and  sympathy  with  the 
enemy;  he  distinguished  himself  by  surrendering  to  the  fed- 
eral government  some  $250,000  as  a  surplus,  after  paying 
his  troops  and  the  administrative  expenses  of  the  states 
under  his  military  command.  Thus  he  appeared  before  the 
nation  as  possessing  the  qualities  of  moderation,  honesty 
and  administrative  ability.  From  that  moment  he  was  a 
leader.  Those  qualities  were  the  cause  of  his  success. 


ARE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVERNING  7 

When  he  was  president  he  inaugurated  an  autocracy  in 
order  to  continue  in  power;  he  had  recourse  to  the  electoral 
farce  which  in  alternation  with  revolution  has  always  been 
the  method  of  appointing  presidents  in  Mexico.  The  neces- 
sity of  aping  the  electoral  proceedings  of  the  United  States, 
without  the  indispensable  background  of  a  trained  people, 
was  responible  for  the  final  undoing  of  that  regime,  and  for 
the  lowering  of  the  moral  character  of  the  people  under  it. 
In  order  to  carry  on  the  farce  of  elections,  the  political  at- 
mosphere of  Mexico  was  filled  with  lies.  The  reflections  of 
General  Diaz  required  complicity  from  the  governors  of  the 
states  down  to  the  mayors  of  the  towns  and  to  the  lowest 
deputy  police,  and  that  complicity  entailed  a  full  system  of 
abuses,  injuries  and  misrule.  The  country,  however,  availed 
itself  of  that  period  of  peace  to  frame  an  organization,  which 
although  primitive  and  defective,  was  the  natural  resultant 
of  two  opposite  forces :  an  uneducated  people,  by  racial  tend- 
encies and  by  centuries  of  tradition  looking  towards  an 
autocracy,  and  the  necessity  of  appearing  to  enforce  a 
political  constitution  which  prescribed  methods  of  govern- 
ment suitable  for  a  different  stage  of  culture.  Under  those 
circumstances  General  Diaz  confined  himself  to  the  economic 
development  of  the  country,  but,  due  to  the  unethical  politi- 
cal methods,  there  resulted  an  inharmonious  accumulation 
of  wealth;  and  to  the  education  of  the  people  and  the  reform 
of  the  schools,  which  for  the  same  reason,  resulted  in  mere 
pedantry.  That  defective  and  vicious  organization  was, 
however,  the  natural  outgrowth  of  our  own  society,  the 
best  we  could  obtain  under  such  adverse  circumstances.  It 
could  be  used  ag  a  ground  work;  it  was  the  painfully  built 
foundation,  laboriously  designed  by  the  best  intellectual 
elements  which  helped  General  Diaz. 

That  lack  of  education  among  the  masses,  you  may  argue, 
was  the  fault  of  Spain,  and  is  the  unpardonable  sin  of  the 
upper  class  of  Mexico.  This  argument  leads  me  to  the  fifth 
fact  to  which  I  must  call  your  attention. 


8  T.  ESQUIVEL  OBREG6N 

FIFTH  FACT 

There  is  in  Washington  a  bureau  which,  it  seems  to  me, 
does  not  attract  great  attention;  it  is  called  the  Commis- 
sion of  Indian  Affairs.  Its  activities  and  methods  are  most 
interesting,  and  its  reports  should  be  read  by  all  those  states- 
men of  the  Spanish  American  countries  in  which  the  Indians 
abound,  as  is  the  case  in  Mexico.  After  many  of  the  tribes 
had  disappeared  and  the  whole  number  of  Indians  within 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  had  been  reduced  to  three 
hundred  thousand,  you  began  to  be  apprehensive  of  their 
complete  annihilation,  which  would  mean  the  passing  away 
of  one  of  the  picturessque  features  of  the  life  of  the  United 
States.  You  felt  equally  alarmed  over  the  possible  destruc- 
tion of  the  Indian  and  of  the  buffalo,  and  you  provided 
against  such  a  result  by  reducing  both,  the  Indian  and  the 
buffalo,  to  reservations  in  which  you  could  see  to  it  that 
they  were  well  kept.  Once  you  decided  upon  this  course, 
you  went  into  the  task  with  the  characteristic  ardor  and 
impetus  which  you  put  into  your  undertakings.  An  ap- 
propriation, which  in  1913  was  more  than  ten  million  dol- 
lars, has  been  yearly  granted  for  the  supervision  and  edu- 
cation of  the  natives  in  the  reservations;  the  rentals  of  the 
land  belonging  to  them  were  also  devoted  to  that  use,  and 
even  the  wages  of  the  Indian  workers  were  put  in  a  bank  for 
their  welfare.  A  system  of  guardianship  was  planned; 
political  rights  were  practically  withdrawn  from  them,  and 
even  the  disposition  of  their  property  was  strictly  controlled 
by  the  inspector  of  each  reservation.  In  reading  the  reports 
of  the  Commission  I  have  been  greatly  surprised  by  the 
similarity  of  methods  employed  by  the  Commission  of 
Indian  Affairs  to  those  of  the  Spanish  missions  in  Mexico. 
So  striking  is  that  similarity  that  I  could  not  help  thinking 
that  either  one  of  two  things  is  true :  that  the  policy  of  the 
Commission  of  Indian  Affairs  was  planned  after  that  of  the 
Missions,  or  the  system  of  the  latter  was  so  near  to  perfec- 
tion that  after  various  centuries,  and  in  spite  of  the  advance- 
ment of  pedagogical  and  social  science,  the  Commission  of 


ARE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVERNING  9 

conclusions.  The  basis  of  that  system  is  common  sense; 
they  do  not  aim  to  develop  the  Indians  by  the  use  of  the 
political  franchise,  but  do  try  to  prepare  them  for  the  fran- 
chise through  education  and  external  discipline,  so  long  as 
discipline  does  not  come  from  their  own  character.  They 
compel  the  Indians  to  carry  on  a  more  comfortable  life  in 
order  to  make  them  love  sociability  and  cooperation,  from 
which  that  comfort  must  come.  After  thirty  years  of  this 
intensive  work  of  civilization,  the  Commission  of  Indian 
Affairs  has  succeeded  in  teaching  some  sixty  thousand 
Indians  to  read  and  write. 

Now,  if  with  more  than  ten  million  dollars  a  year  for  the 
education  of  merely  three  hundred  thousand  Indians  in 
reservations,  kept  in  control  by  an  overwhelming  majority 
of  white  population,  and  under  the  strict  discipline  of 
guardianship,  you  have,  as  a  result  of  thirty-eight  years 
efforts,  taught  only  sixty  thousand  Indians  to  read  and 
write,  how  much  money  does  Mexico  need  to  develop  twelve 
millions  of  illiterate  population,  who  show  every  opposition 
to  be  educated,  are  scattered  over  the  territory  of  the  re- 
public, and  are  almost  incapable  of  discipline,  due  to  the 
extreme  ideas  of  democracy  and  political  rights  which  they 
have  absorbed.  And  how  long  will  it  take  to  have  at  least 
the  majority  of  the  population  educated  in  order  that  un- 
der the  present  system  of  universal  suffrage  the  educated 
people  of  Mexico  may  have  a  chance  to  control  the  country? 

The  government  of  Mexico,  however,  has  shown  a  great 
interest  in  popular  education;  schools  are  found  practically 
in  all  towns;  the  educational  system  is  so  liberal  that  not 
only  primary  schools  but  all  professional  schools  are  free  for 
students,  who  can  undertake  any  career  without  the  need 
of  paying  tuition.  Besides  the  schools  of  the  government, 
there  are  others  supported  by  religious  or  charitable  insti- 
tutions, or  endowed,  so  that  if  the  people  do  not  send  their 
children  to  school  it  is  because,  in  some  cases,  they  lack 
ambition,  in  others  it  is  due  to  some  economic  reason  that 
bars  that  ambition. 

The  whole  system  of  education  is  defective,  however,  be- 
cause in  educating  the  Deoole  without  Divine1  them  better 


10  T.   ESQUIVEL  OBREG6N 

economic  opportunities  and  presenting  to  them  higher  stand- 
ards of  morality  in  political  life,  many  unsatisfied  and  un- 
controlled ambitions  are  raised  which  endanger  the  com- 
munity. Mexico  City,  which  was  better  supplied  than  any 
other  city  hi  the  country  with  educational  facilities,  showed 
a  greater  criminality,  because  education  made  the  people 
long  for  a  higher  standard  of  living  and  made  them  realize 
their  misery.  The  problems  of  Mexico,  consequently,  must 
be  confronted  at  the  same  tune  from  an  economic,  educa- 
tional and  ethical  point  of  view;  to  try  a  solution  from  one 
standpoint  alone  is  a  vain  and  dangerous  attempt. 

The  wonder  is  that  with  our  defective  system  of  education 
we  have  succeeded  in  getting  20  per  cent  of  the  population 
educated  (just  the  same  per  cent  that  you  have  obtained 
among  the  Indian  population,  with  all  your  inexhaustible 
resources) ;  and,  moreover,  that  we  have  succeeded  in  raising 
many  Indians  to  prominent  places  in  the  scientific,  artistic, 
and  political  fields,  even  to  occupy  the  Presidency  of  the 
Republic,  while  in  the  United  States  I  have  never  heard  of 
any  Indian  distinguishing  himself  in  any  way  whatsoever. 

An  American  explained  to  me  that  this  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Indians  on  this  side  of  the  Rio  Grande  are  very 
stupid  and  lazy,  and  the  other  side  of  the  river  they  are 
very  intelligent  and  ambitious;  but  he  did  not  tell  me  to 
what  circumstances  the  psychological  effect  of  the  line  of  the 
Rio  Grande  was  due. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no  such  psychological  mystery 
in  this;  the  explanation  is  very  simple.  You  are  willing  to 
give  the  Indians  education,  but  you  will  never  give  them  a 
social  status  on  the  same  footing  as  a  European.  To  think 
of  an  Indian  being  a  President  of  the  United  States  is  like 
thinking  of  a  whale  building  a  nest  in  a  tree. 

In  Mexico,  on  the  other  hand,  it  we  do  not  have  so  many 
and  such  good  schools,  we  have  instead  that  sense  of  equal- 
ity inherited  with  our  Spanish  traditions.  We  welcome  an 
Indian  in  our  highest  society  whenever  he  adopts  our  manners 
and  culture;  an  Indian  can  marry  the  daughter  of  an  upper 
class  family  if  he  only  shows  a  proper  behavior;  and  if  he  is 
a  learned  man,  the  Mexican  young  men  are  proud  of  calling 


ABE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVERNING         11 

him  their  teacher,  just  as  in  the  colonial  times  the  Indian 
entered  the  ranks  of  the  Spanish  nobility  and  the  descend- 
ants of  Indians  were  appointed  viceroys.  That  moral 
equality,  encouraging  the  Indian,  is  responsible  for  his  suc- 
cess hi  life,  and  explains  the  mystery  of  the  Rio  Grande. 

SIXTH  FACT 

Finally  we  have  another  undeniable  fact,  namely,  the 
decisive  influence  of  the  United  States  on  Mexico.  The 
first  revolution  in  Mexico  was  the  effect  of  two  causes :  the 
condition  of  Spain  under  the  sway  of  Napoleon,  and  the  de- 
sire of  the  Mexican  people  to  take  advantage  of  that  condi- 
tion— imitating  the  United  States believing  that  inde- 
pendence from  Spain  would  produce  for  Mexico  the  same 
results  that  the  United  States  had  secured  by  its  independ- 
ence from  England.  Although  Mexico  was  a  country  which 
had  long  lived  under  a  centralized  form  of  government,  and 
that  common  sense  indicated  that  centralization  was  a  bene- 
fit, they  nevertheless  created  a  fictitious  federation  in  order 
to  imitate  the  United  States;  the  consequent  endless  struggle 
between  federalists  and  centralists  with  all  its  sad  conse- 
quences, was  at  least  the  pretext  for  uprisings,  revolutions, 
and  counter  revolutions,  which  disturbed  -Mexico  until 
1860,  when  Juarez,  with  the  moral  and  material  support  of 
the  United  States,  succeeded  in  establishing  definitely  the 
federal  system.  And  finally,  I  do  not  see  any  better  illus- 
tration of  that  influence  in  Mexican  affairs  than  the  policy 
of  the  present  administration  in  overthrowing  Huerta  and 
substituting  Carranza,  with  the  results  that  all  Americans 
and  Mexicans  know  well. 

These  are  the  most  substantial  facts  in  regard  to  Mexico, 
and  the  conclusions  must  be  the  direct  consequence  of 
those  facts. 

The  first  conclusion  is  that  in  those  periods  in  which 
Mexico  has  enjoyed  peace,  this  peace  has  been  produced  by 
the  rule  of  the  cultured  section  of  the  people  and  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  unlearned  class  to  that  rule.  If  the  coun- 
try is  to  be  governed  in  accordance  with  the  rule  of  univer- 


12  T.   ESQUIVEL   OBKEG6N 

sal  suffrage,  then  the  majority  of  the  population,  that  is  to 
say,  the  illiterate  section  of  it,  will  have  the  control  of  the 
cultured  class.  In  other  words,  that  class  which  for  its 
own  benefit  was  subordinated  under  the  Spanish  regime, 
which  in  the  United  States  is  kept  under  guardianship, 
would  rule  in  Mexico.  If  such  should  be  the  case,  we  must 
in  candor  confess  that  the  Mexican  people  are  not  capable 
of  self-government.  This  is  mere  common  sense.  The 
Indians  and  illiterate  class  of  Mexico  do  not  know  in  some 
cases  even  the  Spanish  language,  do  not  know  the  political 
constitution,  and  the  functions  of  the  different  branches  of 
the  administration.  If  their  vote  is  to  decide,  then  they  will 
be  the  tools  of  wire  pullers  who  may  preach  to  them  democ- 
racy or 'communism  or  any  other  word  which  will  excite  them 
and  stir  them  into  warlike  action;  or  they  will  be  the  raw 
material  for  the  government  electoral  machine.  In  both 
cases  the  sober  honest  citizen  prefers  to  abandon  the  field 
to  his  opponents  because  he  can  see  no  possibility  of  over- 
coming that  machinery,  nor  is  he  disposed  to  compete  in 
machinations.  There  is  no  country  in  the  world  in  which 
the  most  intelligent  and  capable  class,  in  the  long  run,  does 
not  obtain  in  the  government  the  preeminence  it  deserves, 
unless  there  is  some  external  power,  which  interferes  with 
the  inner  forces  of  that  country. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  Mexican  people  are  left 
to  their  own  resources  and  discretion  they  will  prove  their 
capacity  for  self-government,  just  as  they  give  daily  proofs  of 
their  intelligence  as  members  of  the  professional  classes,  and 
of  their  ability  and  honesty  as  business  men.  If  they  do 
not  find  it  necessary  to  misrepresent  the  facts,  they  may 
start  again  that  work  of  civilizing  the  Indians  which  they 
undertook  in  the  epochs  of  greater  prosperity  for  Mexico. 
Let  the  educated  class  of  Mexico  assume  before  the  world 
the  responsibiliy  for  the  culture  of  then*  own  fellow  citizens. 
They  will  show  that  they  are  trustworthy. 

I  am  not  advocating  an  autocratic  irresponsible  govern- 
ment; what  I  believe  is  a  primary  necessity  for  the  life  of 
Mexico  is  to  restrict  the  exercise  of  political  rights  in  Fed- 


AEE    MEXICAN    PEOPLE    CAPABLE    OF    GOVERNING         13 

write,  who  thus  have  an  opportunity  to  know  what  politics 
and  justice  and  political  economy  may  mean.  If  we  con- 
tinue the  rule  of  universal  suffrage,  we  may  have  the  opposite 
effect  of  what  you  had  in  the  South,  where  the  majority 
of  the  whites  suppressed  the  vote  of  the  colored  people, 
and  we  may  be  forced  to  suffer  the  well-known  evils  of 
the  reconstruction  period,  with  all  the  political  manoeu- 
vres of  the  carpet-baggers.  In  Mexico  the  enormous  ma- 
jority of  the  unlearned  class  discourages  and  overcomes  the 
vote  of  the  literate.  If  you  remember  the  history  of  the 
Indian  territory  of  the  United  States,  and  the  reasons  why 
you  were  compelled  to  withdraw  the  political  franchise 
from  the  Indians  there,  you  may  realize  that  the  present 
situation  in  Mexico  is  a  mere  duplication  of  conditions  in 
that  territory;  and  you  may  be  compelled  to  admit  that  my 
suggestion  is  the  only  possible  solution  for  the  Mexican 
problem. 

Up  to  the  present  the  adoption  of  any  kind  of  literacy 
test  for  the  exercise  of  the  franchise  has  met  with  opposition 
principally  from  two  sources:  the  government  which  con- 
trols the  illiterate  class  by  means  of  the  political  machinery 
of  the  administration;  and  the  clergy  which  hopes  to  con- 
trol it  by  means  of  religious  fanaticism  and  prejudice.  The 
strength  of  this  opposition  comes  from  current  opinions  on 
democracy  and  from  the  indiscriminate  application  of  the 
principle  of  equality;  this  opposition  is  so  powerful  that 
even  men  of  culture  and  character  do  not  have  the  courage  to 
express  their  conviction  and  to  attack  universal  suffrage,  for 
the  benefit,  nay,  for  the  very  life  of  Mexico  as  an  independ- 
ent country.  It  is  due  to  my  lack  of  political  ambition, 
that  I  can  state  the  truth,  and  can  speak  with  the  utmost 
positiveness  and  frankness. 

The  second  conclusion  refers  to  the  influence  of  the  United 
States  upon  Mexico.  If  that  influence,  due  to  geographical 
proximity,  has  been  so  decisive  in  the  past  and  continues 
so  decisive  in  the  present,  let  us  utilize  that  for  the  recon- 
struction of  Mexico.  The  only  way  in  which  we  may  suc- 
ceed is  by  securing  the  alliance  of  men  of  intelligence  and 
high  character  in  the  two  countries;  then  instead  of  preach- 


14  T.   ESQUIVEL  OBREG6N 

ing  to  the  Mexicans  the  enforcement  of  principles  the  practi- 
cability of  which  is  doubtful,  explain  to  us  the  valuable  les- 
sons which  you  have  learned  from  your  dealings  with  people 
of  a  lower  degree  of  culture;  your  experience  in  the  South 
during  the  reconstruction  period,  your  troubles  and  difficul- 
ties with  the  Indian  Territory  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  valuable  suggestions  which  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  methods  adopted  by  the  Commission  of 
Indian  Affairs,  as  well  as  from  the  studies  made  with  laborers 
of  different  races  and  origin,  which  are  found  in  the  reports 
of  the  Department  of  Labor.  If  you  wish  really  to  help  us 
to  organize  our  country  as  it  must  be  in  accordance  with 
existing  facts  and  future  possibilities,  do  not  pay  so  much 
attention  to  what  the  politicians  of  Mexico  may  say  in  order 
to  gain  your  support;  notice  carefully  what  they  do  in  order 
to  obtain  the  support  of  their  own  people,  particularly 
whether  they  or  their  followers  grow  rich  in  their  campaign 
for  democracy  and  the  welfare  of  their  country,  and  re- 
serve your  applause  for  those  who  deserve  it  from  an  ethi- 
cal point  of  view.  Then,  as  the  blame  or  the  applause  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States  is  in  itself  a  strong  force  in 
the  world,  the  whole  world  may  see  that  that  force  is  used 
in  the  service  of  practical  ethics,  and  Mexico  will  be  the 
first  to  reap  the  benefits  thereof.  That  is  the  only  thing 
that  I  think  we  need  from  the  United  States  for  our  recon- 
struction, for  a  sound  and  solid  reconstruction.  Nothing 
else.  Is  the  United  States  willing  to  give  us  that  help? 

Now  it  seems  that  a  new  set  of  men  are  coming  into  power 
in  Mexico.  I,  for  the  benefit  of  my  country  and  the  coun- 
try of  my  forefathers,  and  that  of  my  children,  and  for  the 
fair,  friendly  and  beneficial  intercourse  between  Mexico  and 
the  United  States,  wish  for  the  new  rulers,  whoever  they 
may  be,  those  virtues  which  characterized  all  of  our  good 
rulers  in  the  past:  honesty,  modesty,  and  justice,  in  order 
to  make  good  my  last  conclusion:  that  the  Mexican  people, 
if  left  alone  to  the  natural  forces  of  their  own  society,  are 
capable  of  self-government. 


THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE 

By  Frederick  Starr,  of  the  University  of  Chicago 

I  shall  estimate  the  population  of  Mexico  at  fifteen  mil- 
lion people.  I  shall  divide  this  population  into  three  ethnic 
elements.  The  population  is  made  up,  first,  of  pure  Mex- 
ican Indian  tribes;  second,  of  a  mixed  population  with  a 
basis  of  Indian  and  a  mixture  of  Spanish  or  other  foreign 
blood;  third,  of  the  foreign  element  of  fairly  pure  blood,  or 
unmixed  with  Indian — chiefly,  of  course,  Spanish. 

Now,  I  shall  claim  that  there  are  six  million  pure-blood 
Indians  out  of  the  fifteen  million,  and  about  eight  million 
of  the  mestizo,  or  mixed-blood  population;  that  will  leave 
about  one  million  foreigners  of  fairly  pure  blood.  You 
know  that  these  figures  are  worth  absolutely  nothing,  but 
they  are  probably  as  good  as  any  that  can  be  suggested. 
When  we  listened  to  Senor  Esquivel  Obreg6n,  he  emphasized 
the  fact  that  Mexico  is  not  to  be  considered  ethnically:  it 
is  to  be  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  education  and 
economic  and  social  development.  That  is  all  right.  There 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  look  at  the  same  popula- 
tion from  different  points  of  view,  and  we  may  look  at 
it  from  that  point  of  view  just  the  same  as  we  do  from  my 
own  viewpoint.  He  claims  that  80  per  cent  of  this  popula- 
tion might  be  called  uneducated,  and  about  20  per  cent 
might  be  called  educated.  Now,  this  educated  percentage 
would  include,  of  course,  the  great  majority  of  those  of 
foreign  blood;  it  would  also  include  a  certain  number  of 
those  who  had  risen  from  the  mestizo,  or  Indian  masses; 
in  other  words,  it  would  be  larger  than  the  pure  blood  pop- 
ulation, through  a  slight  admixture  and  increase  of  the 
population  from  the  other  two  sources. 

Let  us  look  at  the  Indian  of  Mexico.  Senor  Esquivel 
Obreg6n,  in  talking  with  me,  suggested  that  we  cannot  say 

15 


16  FREDERICK   STARR 

"the  Indian  of  Mexico,"  because  there  are  so  many  dif- 
ferent Indians  of  Mexico.  He  was  right.  There  is  no  one 
type  of  Mexican  Indian;  there  are  many  types.  Nobody 
knows  that  better  than  I  do.  I  have  visited  twenty-three 
tribes,  each  with  its  own  language.  Thousands  of  pure 
Indians  have  passed  through  my  hands  for  careful  examina- 
tion. I  have  known  their  men,  women  and  children;  I 
have  slept  in  their  poor  houses;  I  have  eaten  their  frijoks 
and  tortillas;  I  have  drunk  their  black  coffee;  I  have  gone 
without  anything  for  my  comfort  except  my  zarape  over 
those  mountains.  I  know  them  as  few  white  men  do  and 
as  even  few  Mexicans  do. 

There  are  many  different  kinds  of  Mexican  Indians — 
many.  I  was  talking  once  with  the  archbishop  of  Oaxaca. 
He  said,  "In  my  diocese  we  have  Indians  as  yellow  as 
lemons  and  as  black  as  coal;  we  have  them  so  short  that 
you  could  call  them  pigmies,  and  we  have  them  taller  than 
the  ordinary  white  man;  we  have  Indians  who  are  good, 
and  Indians  who  are  bad."  These  differences  are  tribal 
differences.  The  old  Aztecs,  when  they  wanted  to  speak 
of  someone  who  was  stupid,  would  call  him  an  Otomi.  Those 
of  you  who  know  Mexico  have  seen  their  bands  come  in  to 
the  capital  city  with  their  loads  of  charcoal.  You  recog- 
nize them  by  their  primitive  dress,  their  little  stature, 
their  quiet,  timid  manners,  and  their  heavy  burdens.  Those 
Otomi  are  the  very  essence  of  stupidity;  and  so  when  a  man 
was  notably  stupid,  the  Aztecs  said,  "Oh,  you  Otomi, 
you  Otomi." 

Don  Porfirio  Diaz  was  a  great  man;  he  was  a  great  ruler. 
During  his  power  and  greatness  I  never  joined  in  that  in- 
discriminate paean  of  praise  which  foreigners  were  raising 
to  him — and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  since  the  time  of  his 
downfall  I  have  never  joined  in  that  indiscriminate  criti- 
cism and  hostility  which  those  same  people  too  often  have 
shown  and  which  have  been  fashionable  since  the  days  of 
1911.  Diaz  was  a  great  man  and  a  great  ruler,  and  he 
owed  it  to  his  Indian  blood.  He  was  one-eighth  Indian. 
His  father  was  a  Spaniard  of  pure  blood.  His  mother  was 
one-fourth  blood  Indian.  He  took  after  his  mother.  His 


THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE  17 

strong  character  was  due  to  his  Indian  blood  and  what 
success  he  gained  came  more  from  that  side  than  from  the 
other.  Diaz  looked  with  me  through  my  picture  book  of 
Mexican  Indian  types  and  when  he  came  to  the  Otomi, 
the  old  man  looked  at  one  of  those  types  with  straw  in  his 
matted,  dirty  hair,  clothes  tattered  and  torn,  and  he  said, 
"My  schools  will  make  the  Otomi  over  again."  It  was 
false.  His  schools  could  do  a  great  deal  more  for  an  Aztec 
than  for  an  Otomi,  because  of  original  difference.  We  must 
remember  those  differences  in  the  Mexican  Indians.  It 
is  not  as  if  they  were  a  unit  to  deal  with.  I  was  a  little 
surprised  at  one  thing  that  Senor  Esquivel  said.  He  claimed 
that  all  the  Indians  knew  Spanish  well.  Of  course,  I  did 
tell  him  that  my  own  Spanish  was  picked  up  among  the 
Indians  of  the  mountains,  and  so  it  was.  What  Spanish 
I  know  I  learned  in  the  Mexican  mountains  and  with  those 
poor  Indians  around  me — but,  I  have  been  in  towns  of  six 
thousand  Indian  population  where  there  were  not,  perhaps, 
a  dozen  who  could  talk  Spanish,  and  I  have  been  in  many 
Mexican  towns  where  there  was  only  one  man  who  could 
talk  Spanish.  In  those  old  days,  Diaz  always  saw  that 
there  was  one  person  in  every  Indian  town  who  could  talk 
Spanish.  If  he  was  not  there  beforehand,  he  was  sent 
there  to  act  as  secretario  of  the  town,  to  conduct  necessary 
dealings  with  strangers.  I  think  there  are  large  Zapotec 
towns  where  every  man,  woman  and  child  speaks  the  two 
languages,  but  there  are  other  Indian  towns  where  only 
the  secretario  speaks  Spanish.  I  can  take  you  from  the 
City  of  Mexico,  by  electric-line,  out  about  twenty  min- 
utes in  the  direction  of  Guadalupe,  and  until  we  are  in 
sight  of  its  famous  churches  in  the  distance.  Let  us  get 
off  and  go  across,  the  fields,  and  in  five  minutes'  walk  I 
will  take  you  to  a  village  where  the  people  still  speak  regular 
Aztec  as  their  home  language.  Only  twenty  minutes  from 
the  Plaza  of  the  City  of  Mexico !  That  little  village  knows 
Spanish — yes,  but  they  all  talk  Aztec  as  their  common 
language. 

There  are  then  many  different  tribes  of  Mexican  Indians. 
There  were  a  hundred  and  fifty  different  languages  spoken 


18  FREDERICK   STARR 

in  that  country  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest.  More  than 
fifteen  languages  are  spoken  in  the  State  of  Oaxaca  today, 
and  more  than  90  per  cent  of  its  population  are  pure  blood 
Indian.  How  would  you  like  a  problem  like  that?  What 
would  you  do  with  a  nation  where  six  out  of  every  fifteen 
persons  was  a  full-blooded  Indian?  It  is  a  difficult  propo- 
sition to  handle. 

Let  us  look  at  the  Indians.  They  are  ignorant,  super- 
stitious, suspicious.  How  ignorant  they  are!  None  of 
them  can  read,  but  I  do  not  care  much  about  that.  Illiter- 
acy does  not  seem  to  me  such  an  awful  thing.  More  than 
half  the  people  I  know,  anyway,  do  not  know  how  to  read 
and  write,  and  many  of  the  nicest  people  I  ever  met  in  my 
life  are  absolute  illiterates.  Illiteracy  is  no  crime.  It  is, 
of  course,  a  great  disadvantage,  sometimes.  It  is  a  great 
disadvantage  where  the  majority  of  the  population  knows 
how  to  read  and  write.  There  the  poor  person  who,  through 
some  accident  of  birth,  is  prevented  from  having  that  knowl- 
edge, is  at  a  serious  disadvantage — yes.  But,  what  would 
those  poor  things  read,  anyhow,  if  they  knew  how  to  read 
down  there  in  the  Mexican  mountains?  I  heard  one  of 
our  speakers  groaning  because  our  poor  boys  in  Haiti  cannot 
see  a  newspaper  once  in  four  months !  Is  not  that  a  beautiful 
situation?  I  know  all  about  it,  for  there  have  been  times 
when  I  have  not  seen  a  newspaper  for  months  and  months, 
and  I  did  not  feel  any  serious  loss. 

The  Indians  are  suspicious  and  ignorant.  Why,  yes; 
they  do  not  know  anything  about  the  outside  world.  I 
remember  at  one  time  I  was  in  a  Chinantec  town  where  they 
asked  me  about  the  outside  world.  Once  in  a  while  they  are 
interested.  Occasionally  you  find  an  old  man  who  has  a 
little  knowledge  of  Spanish  and  a  little  curiosity  about  the 
world  outside.  One  such  man  said  to  me,  "Sir,  where  do 
you  come  from?"  And  because  I  have  learned  how  to 
answer  that  question,  I  said,  "I  come  from  El  Norte — a 
long  way.  Have  you  ever  been  down  to  Cuicatlan  and  seen 
the  railroad  line?"  "Yes."  "You  have  seen  a  railroad 
train,  and  know  how  fast  it  goes?"  "Yes."  "It  takes 
us  two  days  to  go  from  here  to  Cuicatlan;  the  next  day 


THE  MEXICAN   PEOPLE  19 

we  go  to  Puebla  by  train;  we  sleep  there  that  night  and 
next  day  take  a  train  to  the  City  of  Mexico;  after  traveling 
several  hours  we  stop  and  rest,  and  then  we  travel  all  the 
next  night  and  the  next  day,  and  the  next  night  and  the 
next  day,  and  the  next  night  and  the  next  day  to  reach  my 
place."  A  look  of  pain,  and  surprise  and  sympathy  came 
over  his  face,  and  he  said:  "Ah,  sir;  what  a  remote,  out-of- 
the-way  place  you  come  from!"  He  had  never  heard  of 
Chicago!  He  had  never  heard  of  New  York!  He  had  not 
heard  of  William  McKinley,  or  Roosevelt,  or  any  of  those 
people!  One  time  one  said  to  me,  "Sir,  is  the  place  you 
came  from  Don  Porfirio's  country?"  The  name  of  Diaz 
was  the  only  name,  almost  the  only  name,  in  Mexico,  that 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  those  Indians  really  did  know. 
"It  is  Don  Porfirio's  country?"  "No;  I  answered;  it  is  not 
Don  Porfirio's  country."  "Then  it  must  be  Papa?"  (i.e., 
the  Pope,  at  Rome) .  ' '  No ;  it  is  not  the  country  of  the  Pope, 
either."  When  they  are  told  that  it  is  neither  the  country 
of  Don  Porfirio  nor  of  el  Papa,  they  are  completely  lost. 
Ignorant?  Yes.  What  a  broad  grasp  he  has  on  world 
affairs!  How  ready  he  is  to  grapple  with  the  serious  prob- 
lems of  life!  How  definite  his  national  ambitions  must  be! 
Suspicious?  They  hate  even  to  have  a  stranger  stay  one 
night  in  their  village.  They  say,  "The  next  town,  sir,  is 
only  a  little  way  on."  Suspicious?  Poor  things!  Why 
should  they  not  be  suspicious?  What  friends  have  they 
ever  had  that  came  as  strangers  to  theh1  town?  And  super- 
stitious? Yes;  they  are  superstitious.  They  are  good 
Catholics,  but  they  do  not  know  anything  about  the  church. 
I  remember  that  one  day  I  was  at  Chicahuaxtla.  When  I 
arrived  I  thought  it  a  most  beautiful  place.  We  came  there 
one  morning  at  ten  o'clock.  The  sun  was  bright,  and  the 
air  fine,  and  as  we  reached  the  height,  we  looked  down 
yonder,  seventy-five  miles  and  could  just  see  the  blue 
waters  of  the  Pacific.  It  was  a  beautiful  mountain  scene. 
Poor,  little  village  with  its  few  hundred  Indians!  We 
stopped  there  several  days.  About  two  o'clock  everything 
changed;  great  billows  of  waves  of  mist  came  up  from  the 
sea;  by  three  o'clock  one  could  not  see  a  thing  anywhere; 


20  FREDERICK   STARR 

by  four  o'clock  we  were  suffering,  and  the  poor  fellows  all 
had  on  their  blankets  and  were  sitting  cold  and  shivering. 
I  thought  this  was  just  one  day,  you  know,  but  I  now  believe 
that  it  happens  there  every  day  of  the  year.  From  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning  until  eleven  o'clock  a  beautiful,  clear 
sky  and  balmy  ah*,  and  the  rest  of  the  tune  shivering  in  that 
penetrating  fog  and  mist.  Poor  things!  They  are  drunk- 
ards, of  course — there,  under  such  circumstances.  To 
show  you  what  good  Catholics  they  are:  I  was  measuring 
my  subjects  one  day;  until  I  saw  more  people  out  than 
usual,  I  did  not  realize  that  it  was  a  Church  holiday;  pres- 
ently I  happened  to  look  out  toward  the  church,  and  there 
came  a  poor  fellow  with  his  head  broken  open  and  with 
blood  flowing  from  the  wound,  his  white  shirt  soaked  with 
blood,  hands  drenched  and  face  covered.  He  came  up 
crying,  with  his  hands  out.  I  said:  "What  is  the  matter 
with  you?"  He  said,  "I  am  the  mayordomo  of  the  church 
here.  It  is  our  feast  day.  The  priest  was  to  come,  and  he 
is  not  here,  and  the  people  are  so  outraged  that  one  has 
broken  my  head  open  with  a  club."  No  wonder  they  were 
irritated  over  the  loss  of  religious  privileges.  "You  look 
bad;"  said  I  to  him.  "Go  back  to  your  house  and  have 
your  woman  wash  you  and  put  on  another  shirt;  if  you  die, 
I  will  see  that  the  man  is  punished."  He  went  away  quite 
happy.  About  two  o'clock  I  was  still  at  work,  and  there 
came  a  crowd  from  the  other  direction.  They  were  carry- 
ing a  pole,  and  there  was  someone  hanging  from  the  pole, 
to  which  he  was  tied  with  cords;  two  held  his  hands,  and  two 
were  holding  his  feet;  he  was  hanging  by  a  loop,  and  as  he 
came  by  he  was  struggling,  and  snarling  and  howling.  I 
asked,  "What  is  the  matter  with  him?"  "Well,"  they 
said,  "it  is  a,  fiesta,  and  he  got  drunk  and  cut  his  friend,  and 
we  are  taking  him  to  the  jail."  At  evening,  at  six  o'clock, 
we  were  in  the  house  of  the  one  mestizo  that  lived  there, 
the  secretario  of  the  town.  We  were  eating  our  evening  meal 
and  heard  a  noise  outside.  I  said,"  What  is  the  matter?" 
"Probably  something  going  on  up  at  the  jail."  "Well," 
said  I,  "let's  go  and  see."  "  No,"  said  the  secretario,  "better 
stay  here."  "There  may  be  some  harm  being  done;  let  us 


THE   MEXICAN  PEOPLE  21 

see  what  is  the  matter,"  said  I.  We  went  up  there.  The 
police  force  was  all  there.  There  was  a  fire  blazing  outside 
the  jail,  which  was  a  single  room  built  of  logs,  or  slabs,  with 
one  door  and  no  windows.  When  we  got  there,  the  police 
were  standing  in  a  half-circle  around  the  door,  and  all  the 
villagers  from  that  part  of  the  village  were  looking  on.  Here 
were  some  holding  torches.  Here  was  the  blazing  fire. 
In  the  midst  of  the  group  was  a  man,  frightfully  drunk. 
He  was  like  an  insane,  crazy  creature — screaming,  yelling, 
clawing  and  doing  all  sorts  of  horrible  things,  and  the  police 
stood  around,  hopeless  and  helpless.  "  What  is  the  matter? 
What  is  the  matter?"  I  said.  "  Why  don't  you  put  him  into 
the  jail?"  Well,  they  closed  in,  under  my  direction;  they 
seized  the  man,  opened  the  jail  door,  and  thrust  him  in. 
I  found  out  then  that  he  was  the  thirty-fifth  one  out  of  the 
population  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  that  went  into  that 
jail  that  day!  And  it  was  a  church  holiday!  It  was  the 
only  day  of  the  year  that  they  would  usually  have  had  the 
services  of  a  priest.  Once  a  year,  in  those  Indian  towns, 
a  priest  visits  the  town  and  says  mass  and  baptizes  the 
children  that  have  been  born,  most  of  them  out  of  matri- 
mony. That  is  a  picture  of  an  Indian  village  in  Southern 
Mexico.  To  finish  the  story  before  we  leave  it,  one  of  the 
police  came  limping  up  to  me,  and  another  came  up  with  a 
blazing  torch,  and  I  saw  then  why  they  had  been  afraid. 
The  man's  leg  was  bleeding,  and  as  I  looked  at  him  I  realized 
what  had  happened.  They  had  tried  to  put  that  crazy, 
drunken  fool  into  the  jail  before,  and  he  had  bitten  a  mouth- 
ful of  living  flesh  out  of  the  leg  of  the  policeman!  An  Indian 
town  in  Southern  Mexico — yes. 

There  are  perhaps  six  million  of  the  population  like  that 
— a  problem,  is  it  not?  I  am  thankful  to  say  that  it  is  not 
all  like  that.  Think  of  Benito  Juarez.  He  was  a  full 
blood  Indian.  When  he  was  a  well-grown  boy  he  could 
speak  scarcely  a  word  of  Spanish.  He  found  his  way  to  the 
capital  city  of  Oaxaca,  found  a  good  priest  as  a  friend, 
learned  all  he  could,  became  a  local  official,  later  represented 
his  district  at  Mexico  City,  became  a  Supreme  Court  judge, 
and  then,  when  there  was  no  legal  president,  because  he  was 


22  FREDERICK   STARR 

Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  he  became  president  of  the 
Republic  of  Mexico.  Pretty  good  work  for  a  pure-blood 
Indian  boy  who  did  not  know  Spanish  until  well  past  the 
days  of  boyhood.  Today  Senor  Esquivel  Obreg6n  and  I 
were  talking  about  Altamirano,  famous  among  the  writers 
of  Mexico  and  Latin  America — one  of  the  best  stylists 
that  the  American  continent  has  ever  produced;  he  was  a 
practically  pure-blooded  Indian  from  one  of  those  poor 
towns  of  Oaxaca,  in  Southern  Mexico.  He  represented  his 
nation  at  the  courts  of  Europe,  and  finally  died  at  the  court 
of  Paris,  of  homesickness.  They  love  their  mountains  so ! 

There  were  other  things  I  was  going  to  tell  you  about  them. 
I  did  not  mean  to  tell  you  any  stories  at  all!  They  are 
hard-working;  they  are  affectionate;  they  are  clannish. 
The  Indian  father  loves  his  little  ones.  He  is  not  " mushy," 
but  he  loves  his  wife.  He  knows  his  town  and  his  own 
people;  that  is  all  he  knows,  and  that  is  all  that  he  has 
confidence  in.  His  poor  village  means  everything  to  him. 
He  will  stand  for  his  town  and  his  people  against  anything — 
everything. 

Industrious?  Yes,  they  all  work.  They  work  those 
little  fields  diligently,  and  they  raise  just  about  enough  to 
keep  them  until  the  next  harvest.  They  burn  a  little 
charcoal;  they  make  a  few  pots;  they  weave  some  mats  and 
braid  some  hats.  They  make  a  trip  once  in  a  while  to 
Oaxaca  to  trade  and  buy  with  their  produce.  In  then: 
little  towns  they  are  all  right.  They  have  a  good  govern- 
ment. It  is  pure  democracy.  They  elect  their  own  officers. 
They  are  honest  people,  and  form  hard-working,  industrious, 
simple  communities.  If  they  are  drunkards,  they  are  so 
because  of  special  circumstances,  such  as  that  awful  mist 
driving  up  from  the  sea.  I  found  that  all  towns  situated 
like  that  are  drunken  towns;  drunkenness  is  the  result  of  that 
situation;  I  would  be  a  part  of  that  drunken  town  if  I  lived 
there  long  enough  and  for  the  same  reason. 

I  was  going  to  tell  you  about  their  laboriousness.  When 
these  people  carry  burdens  to  Oaxaca  to  sell  or  to  trade  in 
the  market,  they  carry  the  heavy  burden  on  their  back 
for  perhaps  a  hundred  miles.  They  will  be  two,  three,  five, 


THE   MEXICAN  PEOPLE  23 

or  more  days  on  the  road.  They  trade  their  goods,  sleep- 
ing on  the  stone  pavements  of  the  corridors  in  front  of 
houses  or  shops,  and  when  they  have  disposed  of  their 
little  stock,  they  are  ready  to  go  home.  They  then  pick 
up  stones  and  load  themselves,  carrying  the  load  of  stones 
back  to  their  towns,  the  weary  miles  over  the  mountains. 
It  looks  foolish,  doesn't  it?  They  do  it  to  keep  themselves 
in  training;  they  do  it  because  if  they  began  to  spare  them- 
selves a  little,  they  might  not  have  strength  enough  to  go  on. 
Are  they  fools?  No;  they  are  not  fools;  there  is  nothing 
the  matter  with  their  brains. 

Let  us  look  at  the  second  element  of  the  population — 
the  mestizos.  Some  mestizos  and  Indians  rise;  they  are  the 
exceptions.  Of  course,  more  mestizos  rise  than  Indians. 
The  mestizo  is  the  person  whom  we  are  fond  of  calling  a 
"  greaser. "  I  know  him  pretty  nearly  as  well  as  I  know  the 
Indian.  He  is  the  common,  every-day  mixed-blood  Mexican. 
Poor,  miserable  greaser — ignorant,  superstitious,  eminently 
pious;  gay,  thoughtless,  improvident.  We  are  told  that 
he  will  work  until  he  has  a  little  money,  and  then  he  will 
not  work  again  until  it  is  gone.  Why  should  he  not  live 
that  way?  How  many  of  us  would  work  if  there  was  not 
a  constant  spur  on  us?  A  few  of  us  would;  I  am  quite  sure 
that  I  would,  but  I  am  not  sure  about  you!  Why  should 
they  work  more  than  they  must?  They  are  gay  and  care- 
less— even  to  the  beggars  on  the  streets  of  Mexico.  We 
have  heard  the  beggars  mentioned  today;  they  are  a  sad, 
sad  sight,  and  yet,  you  know,  they  smile.  They  come  up 
with  the  saddest  looks  and  say  to  you,  "Sefior  .... 
etc."  You  say,  "Mariana,  amigo  mio,"  and  smile  back  at 
them,  and  they  smile  at  you  with  a  smile  that  is  radiant. 
You  would  think  they  never  had  a  pang  in  their  hearts, 
when  in  reality  they  never  had  a  belly-full  of  decent  food 
in  their  lives.  So  happy,  and  kind,  and  gentle — and  so 
poor!  There  are  thousands  of  them — millions  of  them — 
the  mestizos,  and  most  of  them  are  very  poor,  in  Mexico. 

Let  us  look  at  some  of  their  other  qualities.  They  are 
brave — yes — brave  and  cowardly!  Villa  is  an  example. 
He  is  a  very  devil  of  fearlessness;  and  yet  has  more  than 


24  FREDERICK   STARR 

once  shown  himself  an  abject  coward.  It  is  a  common 
thing  in  the  mestizos,  this  combination  of  fearlessness  and 
absolute  cowardice.  They  are  not  afraid  to  die.  If  there 
is  anything  that  they  are  interested  in  that  involves  the 
risk  of  death,  they  will  throw  themselves  into  it  just  the 
same.  They  love  a  leader.  Any  leader  will  do,  as  long  as 
he  is  a  leader — somebody  who  will  say,  "Let  us  do  this." 
They  will  flock  behind  him  to  do  it.  It  is  irrational,  of 
course;  but  they  are  frequently  faithful.  They  are  faithful, 
and  they  are  treacherous  sometimes.  I  have  had  some  most 
faithful  servants  from  these  people.  There  was  a  Mexican 
boy  of  the  mestizo  class  who  came  to  me  at  fifteen  years  of 
age,  and  through  fifteen  years  every  time  I  needed  him  he 
stood  by  me,  and  I  knew  I  could  never  be  taken  unawares 
so  long  as  his  eagle  eye  was  watching  my  surroundings. 
The  boy  was  murdered  in  Mexico,  sleeping  in  his  bed,  in 
1912.  He  had  worked  with  me  in  America,  Europe,  Asia, 
Africa.  He  had  traveled  200,000  miles  with  me.  The 
mestizos  are  frequently  faithful.  Any  person  who  has  had 
genuine  experience  in  Mexico,  either  as  mistress  in  a  house 
or  master  in  a  shop,  or  superintendent  of  labor,  knows  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  fine  and  useful  and  valuable  in 
those  mestizo  people — common  greasers.  They  are  not 
fools,  either.  They  know  what  they  want,  and  they  are 
learning  what  they  ought  to  want.  One  of  the  most  inter- 
esting experiences  of  my  life  dates  to  the  time  when  Diaz 
first  began  to  draw  the  line  between  Bernardo  Reyes  who 
had  been  Minister  of  War  and  whom  the  people  expected 
would  be  the  next  President  of  Mexico,  and  Limantour. 
The  mestizos  were  interested  in  that  contest,  and  I  saw  the 
birth  and  development  of  actual  interest  in  politics  such  as 
they  had  not  been  accustomed  to  before.  From  that  day 
on,  Mexicans — the  common  Mexicans — have  been  think- 
ing sanely  and  sensibly  about  what  they  want,  but  they 
need  leadership  to  realize  and  to  achieve  it. 

I  was  going  to  say  of  the  Indian,  finally,  that  he  is  cruel 
and  bloodthirsty,  'and  of  the  mestizo  that  he  is  cruel  and 
proud.  Cruel  in  both  cases,  with  the  cruelty  of  the  old 
Indian;  and  hi  the  mestizo,  proud  with  the  splendid  pride  of 
Spam. 


THE   MEXICAN  PEOPLE  25 

Such  are  the  people  of  Mexico.  There  are  different  ways 
of  looking  at  their  problem.  Senor  Esquivel  Obreg6n  says 
that  the  problem  finds  its  solution  in  the  handling  of  that 
mass  of  Indians  and  mestizos  by  the  ilustrados.  It  is  a  mode 
of  solution;  it  is  the  natural  mode.  It  is  the  mode  that  was 
to  be  hoped  for,  and  it  is  the  mode  which  would  most 
promptly  and  naturally  solve  the  problem.  But  little  prog- 
ress has  been  made  along  that  line.  For  four  hundred 
years  the  common  people  have  been  exploited.  I  admire 
the  old  Spanish  days  a  great  deal.  There  are  beautiful 
things  to  be  said  about  the  times  of  the  viceroys.  Spain 
did  wonders  in  Mexico.  There  was  a  magnificent  develop- 
ment even  in  the  sixteenth  century.  All  that  we  have  been 
told  about  that  development  is  true;  but,  after  all,  it  was 
a  period  of  dreadful  exploitation. 

Let  us  examine  the  kinds  of  exploitation  through  which 
Mexico  has  passed  and  under  which  it  has  suffered  for  more 
than  five  hundred  years.  First,  is  the  exploitation  of  the  com- 
mon Indian,  which  began  long  before  the  Spaniard  ever  landed 
down  there  near  Vera  Cruz.  Do  you  realize  what  a  language 
means  that  contains  deferentials?  There  are  deferentials  in 
the  Japanese  language.  The  Japanese  say  a  thing  politely  to 
a  superior,  or  impolitely  to  an  inferior,  and  naturally  to  an 
equal.  There  are  deferential  forms  in  many  other  languages, 
but  I  know  of  no  language  where  it  comes  to  the  perfection 
that  it  comes  to  in  some  Mexican  Indian  tongues.  Deference 
is  shown  in  most  languages  in  the  general  construction  of  the 
sentence  and  in  special  forms  of  verbs  and  pronouns.  But 
in  Aztec  adjectives  are  deferential,  adverbs  are  deferential 
and  prepositions  and  conjunctions;  in  other  words,  it  is  not 
only  the  nouns  and  pronouns  that  show  an  attitude  of 
cringing,  servile  respect  to  those  above  and  of  contempt  for 
those  below,  but  all  the  parts  of  speech.  And  this  attitude 
of  the  common  man  to  his  superior  antedates  the  coming  of 
the  Spanish.  In  the  ruined  cities  of  Central  America  and 
Mexico,  the  buildings  that  are  left  are  only  those  that  were 
used  for  religious  and  governmental  purposes.  Thus,  at 
Mitla  there  is  nothing  of  ruins  except  government  and  re- 
ligious buildings — yet  thousands  of  people  must  have  lived 


26  FREDERICK   STARR 

at  Mitla.  The  people  generally  lived  in  poor  huts,  and  the 
priests  and  the  rulers  had  substantial  buildings  constructed 
with  sweat  and  labor  for  their  benefit;  in  other  words,  ex- 
ploitation of  the  common  people  antedates  the  Conquest. 
Then,  four  hundred  years  ago,  came  the  Spaniard  with  his 
career  of  conquest.  There  is  no  question  about  the  ex- 
cellent things  he  brought  in.  There  is  no  question  that 
frequently  fine  things  were  developed,  but  the  people  were 
pitilessly  exploited.  The  Indians  of  Central  America  and 
Mexico  were  put  to  work  in  the  mines  and  fields  and  driven 
by  hard  masters.  I  realize  all  that  the  Council  of  the  Indies 
did — all  the  good  laws  that  were  passed — all  the  efforts 
made  by  such  priests  as  Bartolome  de  las  Casas.  But  the 
situation  was  that  of  slavery  for  the  Indian.  He  toiled  in 
the  fields  and  the  mines;  he  had  to  do  all  under  pressure;  he 
was  the  last  thing  to  be  considered,  so  long  as  the  conquista- 
dores  got  something  out  of  it. 

The  next  exploiters  were  the  Frailes.  Many  of  the  mis- 
sionaries were  good  and  devout  men,  devoted  and  friendly 
to  the  Indians;  splendid  developments  they  made.  You 
may  still  see  those  magnificent  churches  here  and  there  all 
over  that  wonderful  country;  and  around  those  churches, 
m  the  old  days,  were  the  huts  of  the  Indians.  The  labor 
was  done  under  direction  and  wealth  was  produced;  the 
priests  lived  in  luxury;  the  Indians  were  no  doubt  happy 
to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  priests  rather  than  outsiders, 
but  they  were  exploited  for  the  Church.  There  is  much 
unjust  criticism  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Mexico.  It 
drained  the  population,  yes;  but  the  priests  would  have 
been  less  than  human  and  more  than  human  if  they  had  not 
taken  advantage  of  the  situation  they  found.  They  came 
upon  a  people  who  were  accustomed  to  yield  everything  to 
authority  and  to  religion,  and  why  should  not  they  expect 
the  same  kind  of  contributions  that  the  Indians  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  giving  their  own  bloodthirsty  gods? 

Who  were  the  next  exploiters?  Los  duenos,  los  amos. 
When  those  fine  old  properties,  given  to  the  conquistador -es, 
passed  permanently  into  the  hands  of  old  families — splen- 
did great  possessions  of  land,  wide-stretching,  rich,  fertile, 


THE   MEXICAN  PEOPLE  27 

and  not  only  land  properties,  but  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  men,  who  worked  them  were  really  owned  by  the  duenos. 
The  laborers  were  entitled  to  their  tortillas  and  frijoles,  to 
their  poor  clothing  and  simple  shelter,  and  they  contrib- 
uted to  the  wealth  of  the  owners.  The  situation  might 
have  been  worse  than  it  was  but  the  common  laborers  were 
serfs  on  the  lands.  It  was  exploitation,  and  the  peons  got 
out  of  it  but  a  bare  living,  while  the  amos  and  duenos  lived 
in  splendor. 

Then  came  the  revolution,  one  hundred  years  ago.  For 
a  hundred  years  the  form  of  exploitation  has  been  different. 
Today  it  is  largely  the  exploitation  of  los  politicos,  the 
leaders,  the  men  who  can,  through  the  hands  that  they  con- 
trol, mount  to  power.  Sad,  is  it  not?  One  sort  of  exploi- 
tation after  another:  is  it  always  going  to  keep  on?  It 
might  have  been  hoped  that  the  old  situation  would  end 
with  the  coming  of  the  Spaniards;  but  things  were  worse; 
when  liberty  and  independence  came,  it  might  have  been 
hoped  that  things  would  improve,  but  they  have  gone  right 
on  under  the  modern  politico. 

Such  is  the  population  of  Mexico — the  Mexican  people. 
Let  us  look  at  the  Mexican  Republic.  From  the  beginning 
it  has  been  a  land  of  prosperity  and  wealth;  but  only  for  a 
few — always  but  a  few.  The  priests,  the  chiefs,  the  con- 
querors, the  land-owners,  the  politicians,  the  leaders — have 
had  an  easy  time.  It  has  been  the  people,  who  have  carried 
them.  As  Senor  Esquivel  Obreg6n  says,  the  natural  thing 
is  for  an  evolution  to  have  taken  place,  but  I  see  no  signs 
of  upward  evolution  in  that  career  of  exploitation.  The 
situation  of  the  Mexican  population  today  is  no  better  than 
it  was  four  hundred  years  ago,  and  yet  in  any  genuine  de- 
velopment and  evolution  it  should  have  been  vastly  im- 
proved. The  ilustrados  should  have  helped  that  evolution. 
They  have  been  content  to  leave  the  Indians  just  a  bare  ex- 
istence, so  long  as  they  were  comfortable.  One  of  the  most 
serious  mistakes  of  Diaz  in  his  long  period  of  rule  was  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  develop  those  Indians — those  fellows 
in  the  mountains,  talking  their  languages,  living  in  their 
little  villages,  into  citizens  of  the  Republic.  During  thirty- 


28  FREDERICK   STARR 

five  years  Diaz  should  have  instilled  into  their  minds  the 
fact  that  they  were  part  of  a  great  nation;  if  he  had  done 
that,  they  would  be  part  of  a  great  nation  today.  But 
instead,  he  dealt  with  them  in  the  easiest,  simplest  way. 
They  would  pay  their  contribution,  their  personal  tax  for 
the  sake  of  being  left  alone.  It  was  the  easiest  way  to  deal 
with  a  serious  problem.  It  was  Diaz's  way.  He  left  the  six 
million  Indians  absolutely  alone  as  long  as  they  paid  their 
contribution.  They  do  not  know  today  that  they  are  a 
part  of  a  nation.  They  do  not  know  today  their  duties 
toward  anything  outside  their  village.  Porfirio  Diaz  made 
a  serious  blunder  in  dealing  with  that  problem  in  the  easiest 
way,  instead  of  making  the  Indians  realize  that  he  was 
President  of  Mexico,  and  that  they  were  Mexicans — not 
only  Aztecs,  and  Mixtecs  and  Zapotecs,  and  so  on,  but 
Mexicans. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  the  land  problem. 
There  was  a  tune  when  President  Wilson  used  to  talk  about 
the  agrarian  problem  of  Mexico.  I  do  not  think  he  has 
the  slightest  idea  of  the  real  problem.  There  are  two  agra- 
rian problems,  both  of  which  are  of  importance.  We  have 
seen  how  the  great  estates  came  into  existence.  Hundreds 
and  thousands  of  people  often  labored  on  the  lands  of  one 
owner.  That  is  an  agrarian  problem,  and  that  is  what  Mr. 
Wilson  was  thinking  of;  it  is  what  most  people  in  the  United 
States  mean  when  they  talk  about  the  agrarian  problem 
of  Mexico.  But  that  problem  can  wait.  Those  great 
estates,  landed  properties  of  old  families,  with  the  common 
laborers  upon  them  in  actual  serfdom,  are  undesirable. 
They  will  pass,  of  course,  in  tune,  if  Mexico  really  progresses. 
It  is  too  late  in  the  world's  history  for  such  conditions  to 
be  normal.  But  there  is  another  agrarian  problem;  it  is 
more  serious;  its  solution  is  urgent.  Only  a  few  years  ago, 
within  the  memory  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  Indians 
still  living,  some  new  laws  were  passed  in  Mexico  the  purpose 
of  which  was  simply  to  get  possession  of  the  common  lands 
of  the  Indians.  In  many  towns  the  Indians  do  not  own 
individual  land.  A  man  occupies  individual  ground,  his 
father  before  him,  and  his  grandfather  before  him,  occupied 


THE   MEXICAN  PEOPLE  29 

it.  He  looks  upon  it  practically  as  his,  but  it  is  really  not 
such.  It  is  the  property  of  his  village,  but  he  has  the  use  of 
it.  Laws  were  passed  that  took  such  land  into  considera- 
tion. These  lands  were  taken  away,  here  and  there  in  the 
Indian  districts,  land  on  which  the  Indians  had  lived  for 
years  and  years.  The  law  said,  such  lands  should  be  regis- 
tered; if  not  registered  by  a  given  date  they  become  public 
land.  What  did  those  poor  Indians  know  about  registering 
land  that  they  had  lived  on  for  years  and  their  ancestors 
before  them?  They  were  not  expected  to  register  these 
lands;  it  was  known  that  they  would  not  register.  The  land 
was  taken;  the  Indians  were  evicted  from  the  soil.  That 
is  the  problem  that  hurts.  It  is  the  lands  that  have  been 
taken  from  the  Indians  during  our  memories,  which  should 
be  given  back  to  them  before  the  present  generation  of  them 
dies,  that  is  the  urgent  agrarian  problem  of  Mexico. 

With  the  eviction  of  Indians  from  their  lands — from  their 
common  lands — there  were  troops  of  homeless,  property- 
less,  wandering,  tramping  beggars,  subjected  to  every  kind 
of  temptation  and  degradation!  Let  the  old  masters,  as 
many  of  them  as  treat  their  people  right,  alone  for  the  pres- 
ent. Take  whatever  time  is  necessary  to  deal  with  them, 
but  something  should  be  done  with  these  comparatively 
recently  evicted  Indians.  Their  lands  were  sold  to  outsiders 
ilustrados  in  Mexico  and  newspaper  owners  and  others  in 
the  United  States. 

There  is  another  thing  in  this  connection.  I  have  been 
in  towns  which,  a  little  before  my  visit,  were  fine  towns  of 
hundreds  of  people,  which  were  practically  depopulated  or 
left  with  but  a  few  women  and  children  in  the  place.  What 
had  happened?  American  investors  who  wanted  to  try  a 
futile  experiment  in  raising  rubber  or  in  developing  coffee 
plantations  needed  help.  Do  you  get  the  idea?  American 
investors,  German  investors,  French  investors,  people  who 
wanted  agricultural  labor  where  there  was  none  available 
needed  hands,  and  whole  towns  were  depopulated  against 
the  wishes  of  the  townsfolk  in  order  to  supply  contract  la- 
borers to  neighboring  foreign  plantations.  Well,  that  is  one 
way  of  lifting  and  improving,  teaching,  giving  the  results  of 
Western  culture  to  the  Mexican  people. 


30  FREDERICK   STARR 

It  seems  as  if  a  critical  moment  has  come.  It  seems  as  if 
the  question  is  whether  the  future  is  to  see  a  similar  exploita- 
tion. Are  the  Mexican  common  people  to  continue  to  be 
slaves?  After  having  been  slaves  of  their  own  leaders,  of 
the  conquistadores,  of  the  misioneros,  the  duenos,  and  the 
politicos,  are  they  to  be  similarly  exploited  by  los  extranjeros 
—the  foreigners?  It  appears  quite  possible.  It  looks  as  if 
we  would  expand;  it  looks  as  if  we  would  crowd;  it  looks  as 
if  we  must  have  labor.  Labor  is  not  common;  it  can  be 
had.  It  may  be  paid  well.  We  have  paid  better  wages 
usually  than  the  ilustrados  have.  Yes;  but  after  all,  it  is 
slavery.  And  it  is  a  slavery  that  is  particularly  hard  where 
the  master  knows  nothing  about  the  particular  psychology, 
or  the  makeup,  or  the  past,  the  pleasures,  the  desires  of  the 
laborers.  I  wish  the  ilustrados  would  wake  up.  I  wish 
that  twenty  per  cent  of  educated  population  would  help 
the  evolution  a  little  bit.  They  have  not  done  much  in 
a  long  time.  They  must  wake  up,  because  if  they  do  not, 
they  are  as  sure  to  lose  their  hold  as  the  common  people  of 
Mexico  are  sure  to  lose  theirs. 

The  only  leader  who  seems  to  have  said  anything  in  favor 
of  the  people  of  Mexico  or  to  have  made  any  public  utter- 
ance in  their  behalf,  was  the  man  of  whose  death  we  have  just 
heard — President  Carranza.  I  have  heard  much  criticism 
of  Carranza.  He  was  not  my  choice  for  President;  still, 
when  he  was  recognized  I  said:  " Thank  Heaven;  Wilson 
has  recognized  someone!"  It  was  time  that  he  did.  There 
were  reasons  why  I  believed  that  Carranza  would  be  a 
failure.  Compared  with  what  I  expected,  he  has  proved 
an  extraordinary  success.  Some  things  that  he  has  done 
are  foolish.  Like  almost  every  man  who  has  come  into 
power  in  Mexico,  he  threw  his  promises  to  the  winds  after 
he  was  once  in  control.  Yet  he  did  some  remarkable 
things,  considering  the  situation  that  he  found.  Well,  he 
has  gone,  I  suppose.  The  ex-Ambassador  (Hon.  Henry 
Lane  Wilson)  told  us  last  evening  that  we  did  not  know 
anything  of  what  had  taken  place  in  Mexico  for  the  last 
thirty  days,  and  then  immediately  afterwards  told  us  a  de- 
tailed story  of  Carranza  fleeing  into  the  mountains  with 


THE   MEXICAN   PEOPLE  31 

27,000,000  pesos!  Probably  he  has  gone,  and  it  is  too  bad 
that  he  did  not  do  more.  His  real  weakness  was  the  same 
that  President  Roosevelt  showed  and  that  Mr.  Wilson 
showed.  President  Roosevelt,  you  remember,  as  he  neared 
the  end  of  his  term  of  office,  was  obsessed  with  the  fear  lest 
his  policies  would  be  neglected — "My  policies  must  be  con- 
tinued." It  is  an  idea  that  people  in  power  often  get.  It  is 
always  a  mistaken  idea.  There  is  no  man  whose  policies 
are  so  strong  and  so  absolute  that  something  else  will  not 
do;  but  people  are  often  taken  that  way,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt 
was.  So  he  put  Mr.  Taft  in,  and  you  know  how  that  came 
out.  It  led  to  a  rupture  from  which  the  party  is  still  suf- 
fering. Wilson  came  to  a  point  once  where  he  felt  that  his 
policies  were  the  one  and  only  thing,  and  so  he  made  an 
appeal  to  the  American  people,  and  he  said,  "You  must," 
and  they  gave  him  a  Republican  Congress !  The  situation  in 
Mexico  is  that  same  thing.  Carranza  insisted  on  having 
his  policies  continued,  and  they  answered  that  demand  by 
arms,  and  that  is  all.  It  is  not  to  insure  a  fair  election  of 
our  kind,  which  is  a  thing  they  know  nothing  about  in 
Mexico.  What  is  the  use  of  making  pretenses,  when  we  all 
know  better? 

Is  it  probable  that  Mexico  will  really  be  absorbed  by 
United  States  capital?  Is  it  probable  that  the  Mexican 
people  will  now  be  the  slaves  of  a  new  exploiter?  Is  it 
possible  that  after  500  years  of  absolutely  living  for  the 
benefit  of  others  and  getting  nothing  but  a  scanty  living, 
that  they  are  to  pass  into  hands  quite  as  ruthless,  harsh  and 
cruel  as  anything  they  have  had  before?  My  own  belief 
is  that  it  depends  on  who  they  have  as  President  in  Mexico 
for  the  next  fifteen  years. 

This  is  my  last  point.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to 
what  is  essential  in  a  President  of  Mexico  for  the  next  few 
years,  if  the  people  of  Mexico  are  not  to  pass  into  the  hands 
of  new  exploiters. 

The  first  thing  is  that  the  president  of  Mexico  must  have 
some  Indian  blood.  That  was  one  point  against  Madero — 
he  was  a  Portuguese.  Carranza  was  a  Spaniard.  The  man 
to  solve  Mexico's  problems  must  have  some  Indian  blood. 


32  FREDERICK  STARR 

What  are  the  two  names  that  stand  out  conspicuously 
among  the  names  of  the  presidents  of  Mexico?  Benito 
Juarez  and  Porfirio  Diaz.  Diaz  had  only  one-eighth  Indian 
blood,  but  he  was  a  good  deal  of  an  Indian. 

Second,  the  president  of  Mexico  for  the  next  fifteen  years, 
should  have  a  strong  hand.  We  talk  a  great  deal  about 
tyranny,  overriding  public  rights,  and  all  that.  My  dear 
friends,  I  am  as  interested  in  having  every  man,  woman  and 
child  have  all  their  rights  as  anyone  can  possibly  be,  but 
the  president  of  Mexico  for  the  next  fifteen  years,  if  there  is 
to  be  evolution  or  progress,  must  be  a  man  with  a  strong 
hand;  and,  if  he  is  a  man  with  a  strong  hand,  as  president  of 
Mexico  he  will  unquestionably  override  some  human  rights 
during  the  period  of  his  administration. 

In  the  third  place,  the  president  of  Mexico  during  the 
next  fifteen  years  must  be  a  just  man  and  must  be  prepared 
to  protect  foreign  interests  and  investments,  but  he  must 
think  first,  and  always  first,  of  the  Mexican  people. 

In  the  fourth  place,  the  president  who  is  to  help  Mexico 
within  the  next  fifteen  years  must  think  much  more  of  the 
Indian  and  the  common,  poor  mestizo  than  he  does  of  the 
ilustrado.  I  have  no  fear  that  the  ilustrado  will  be  thrown 
down  and  trampled  upon.  It  is  not  impossible — such 
things  have  happened  in  other  lands,  in  other  times,  but 
both  the  Indian  and  the  common  man  in  Mexico  are  men  of 
extraordinary  docility  and  gentleness  of  character,  and  if 
only  a  little  attention  is  given  to  their  elevation  and  only  a 
little  is  done  to  help  them,  a  great  deal  is  accomplished. 
You  remember  that  we  heard  someone  suggest  that  they 
should  be  fed  before  they  are  taught.  That  idea  has  my 
heartfelt  sympathy.  I  do  not  think  so  much  of  books. 
Books  are  all  right,  in  their  way,  and  when  the  time  comes, 
give  the  Mexican  children  books — yes,  put  them  in  school; 
but  wash  them,  dress  them,  clothe  them,  feed  them — yes, 
give  them  something  on  which  the  digestive  juices  may  act 
— first.  When  I  say  give  it  to  them,  I  mean  let  them  earn 
it;  but  let  them  earn  it  at  a  decent  rate,  in  their  own  way, 
in  work  for  Mexicans. 


THE   MEXICAN   PEOPLE  33 

Consider  some  of  the  men  who  have  lately  been  presidents 
of  Mexico.  There  was  old  man  Huerta.  He  was  probably 
a  pure-blood  Indian.  He  came  into  power  entirely  legally; 
every  legal  step  was  observed  when  Victoriana  Huerta 
became  president  of  Mexico.  More  than  that,  Huerta's 
hands  were  not  stained  with  the  blood  of  Madero  at  the 
tune  he  became  President.  He  is  said  to  have  been  an  aw- 
ful drunkard,  and  they  tell  dreadful  tales  about  the  way  he 
took  his  whisky.  I  imagine  that  the  people  in  this  audience 
do  not  know  anything  about  whisky.  Dr.  Cummings  has 
gone,  so  I  shall  feel  safe  in  making  some  observations! 
Gentlemen  take  whisky  by  measured  " fingers,"  and  put  a 
certain  amount  of  some  kind  of  effervescent  water  in  with 
the  whisky,  and  according  to  the  amount  of  "  fingers"  and 
the  amount  of  effervescent  water,  the  gentleman's  position 
is  gauged.  The  finger  measure  must  not  be  too  small,  but 
it  must  not  be  too  large.  Probably  Huerta  was  no  gentle- 
man. Personally,  I  do  not  think  that  Huerta  was  so  popu- 
lar that  if  left  alone  he  would  have  remained  in  power,  but 
before  we  got  through  with  him,  he  was  the  fittest  man  to 
occupy  the  presidential  chair  of  Mexico,  and  I  have  always 
regretted  that  Wilson  did  not  recognize  him.  Huerta  rep- 
resented almost  everything  that  I  considered  bad  in  Mexi- 
can politics,  but  he  was  the  legal  ruler  of  the  country;  he 
was  an  Indian  by  blood;  he  was  a  man  with  a  strong  hand; 
he  would  not  have  granted  anything  to  the  Mexican  people 
as  long  as  he  did  not  have  to  do  so.  But  Huerta  was  no 
fool.  He  had  seen  Porfirio  Diaz  fall  from  his  splendid 
height;  he  had  seen  Madero,  who  had  been  the  popular  idol, 
in  less  than  two  years  absolutely  destroyed.  Being  no  fool, 
Huerta  would  grant  grudingly,  he  would  give  slowly,  what 
was  necessary,  an$  that  is  what  the  successful  president  of 
Mexico  must  do.  It  is  a  mistake  to  throw  too  much  at  one 
time  to  a  struggling  population.  I  hope  the  Mexican  people 
will  get  their  rights;  I  hope  they  will  struggle  and  insist 
upon  their  rights;  I  hope  that,  no  matter  who  comes  to  the 
Presidential  chair,  he  will  be  forced,  gradually,  to  give  them 
their  rights.  But,  let  them  get  their  rights  gradually,  in 


34  FREDERICK   STARR 

the  same  way  that  we  did  through  the  days  of  English  his- 
tory. So  much  for  old  man  Huerta. 

And  there  was  Carranza.  I  have  said  all  I  care  to  about 
him.  And  here  is  Obreg6n.  I  do  not  know  Obreg6n.  I 
believe  that  Carranza  promised  that  he  should  follow  him 
and  that  more  than  one  year  ago  it  was  fully  arranged  in  de- 
tail. It  was  expected  that  when  Carranza  got  through  and 
the  election  came,  Obreg6n  should  be  the  one  candidate,  and 
that  he  would  have  the  president  behind  him.  Perhaps 
they  quarreled;  perhaps  it  was  only  the  obsession  that  his 
policies  were  essential;  at  all  events  Carranza  raised  up 
his  personal  candidate,  Bonillas.  The  Mexican  people  ex- 
pected Obreg6n  to  become  president.  He  expected  it. 
Carranza  meant  it,  up  to  a  certain  point.  It  looks  now  as  if 
he  will  be  president. 

Rodolfo  de  la  Huerta  must  be  an  interesting  man.  He  has 
a  good  deal  of  Indian  blood,  and  he  is  something  of  a  ruler. 
He  is  a  reformer.  Like  most  Mexicans,  he  has  his  warm 
friends  and  his  bitter  enemies.  His  friends  say  nothing  but 
good  of  him,  and  his  enemies  nothing  but  bad.  It  is  as- 
serted by  his  friends  that  he  made  Sonora  "dry  as  a  bone;" 
his  enemies  say  that  what  he  really  did  was  to  corner  all 
the  drinks  and  sell  them  out  at  a  sharp  advance.  In  either 
case,  he  must  be  quite  a  notable  man.  He  is  the  present 
power.  We  have  heard  something  about  Alvarado.  My 
suspicion  is  that  Mexico  is  not  big  enough  for  both  Obreg6n 
and  Alvarado.  It  is  perhaps  large  enough  for  Obreg6n 
and  de  la  Huerta.  Pablo  Gonzales,  who  enjoys  the  nickname 
of " The  Squash,"  perhaps  will  get  on  with  Obreg6n,  but  they 
will  find  the  confines  narrow  when  Obreg6n  and  Alvarado 
come  to  really  work  together.  Whichever  of  those  men 
comes  in,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  may  build  on  the  founda- 
tions which  Carranza  has  laid. 


UPON  THE  INDIAN  DEPENDS  MEXICO'S  FUTURE 

By  James  Carson,  National  Councillor  of  the  American  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  of  Mexico;  Formerly  Chief  of  the 
Associated  Press  Service  in  Mexico 

The  year  1920  will  perhaps  figure  in  Mexico's  history  as 
the  most  momentous  since  that  of  1821  when  Mexico  first 
attempted  to  walk  alone.  The  overturning  of  the  Car- 
ranza  government  may  mean  the  first  real,  though  somewhat 
uncertain,  step  toward  self-government  as  we  know  it  here 
in  the  United  States.  This  assumption  is  predicated  on  the 
fact  that  the  Mexicans  are  weary  of  war,  after  a  nine  years' 
orgy  of  bloodshed,  during  which  time  almost  every  crime 
was  committed  in  the  name  of  liberty  and  of  democracy. 

Much  of  the  confusion  which  has  clouded  the  minds  of 
many  observers  of  Mexican  affairs  has  been  occasioned  by 
non-consideration  of  the  history  of  the  Mexican  people  and 
the  consequent  failure  to  comprehend  the  true  character 
of  the  natives.  It  is  but  natural  that  North  Americans 
should  apply  the  yardstick  of  experience  in  measuring  the 
happenings  and  judging  of  the  future  of  the  republic  to  the 
south  of  them,  but  such  a  procedure  must  inevitably  result 
in  wrong  conclusions.  The  first  question,  therefore,  which 
one  must  endeavor  to  answer,  in  order  to  dispassionately 
judge  the  present-day  Mexican  situation,  is:  Who  are  the 
Mexican  people? 

Their  beginning  is  shrouded  in  mystery.  No  field  offers 
such  fascination  for  the  archeologist.  We  know  from  the 
ruins  of  Palenque  and  of  Mitla  that  a  race  peopled  Mexico 
some  2000  years  before  Christ.  From  the  inscriptions  chis- 
eled on  the  ruins  of  the  stone  temples  which  have  been 
unearthed  it  seems  probable  that  these  people  were  star- 
worshippers  and  their  hieroglyphics  bear  a  resemblance  to 
those  of  the  early  Assyrians  and  Egyptians. 

35 


36  JAMES   CARSON 

The  beginnings  of  Mexico,  however,  cannot  be  traced  to 
this  dim  past.  The  modern  Mexican  is  a  descendant  of  the 
Toltecs  and  the  Aztecs.  Just  what  influence  the  first  of 
these  races  had  in  moulding  the  character  of  the  present-day 
people  is  questionable.  The  Toltecs  left  imposing  monu- 
ments in  the  shape  of  great  pyramids  rivaling  some  of  those 
of  Egypt.  The  best  two  examples  of  these  which  have 
endured  until  today  are  those  at  San  Juan  de  Teotihuacan, 
about  thirteen  miles  southeast  of  Mexico  City,  and  one  at 
Cholula  on  the  outskirts  of  the  City  of  Puebla. 

The  real  forefathers  of  the  present-day  Mexicans  were  the 
Aztecs.  These  people  were  of  undoubted  Mongolian  ori- 
gin and  their  migrations  from  that  part  of  the  United  States 
now  occupied  by  the  States  of  Oregon,  California,  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico,  into  Old  Mexico,  can  be  easily  traced  to 
this  day  We  know  that  these  people  had  some  strong 
qualities;  that  they  had  imagination,  and  some  capacity 
for  civil  government  and  a  sort  of  genius  for  building.  All 
this  can  be  read  in  the  structures  which  they  left  in  New 
Mexico,  in  Chihuahua  and  in  the  ruins  of  the  Teocali  which 
was  built  upon  the  site  of  the  present  Cathedral  in  Mexico 
City. 

When  Hernando  Cortez,  with  his  little  band  of  supermen, 
landed  at  Vera  Cruz  and  burned  his  ships  behind  him,  the 
Aztec  was  the  dominant  race  in  Mexico.  If  we  can  rely 
upon  the  very  fascinating  accounts  of  Prescott  and  the 
garrulous  notes  of  that  old  conquistador,  Bernal  Diaz,  we 
may  be  sure  that  these  people  were  in  many  things  as  far 
advanced  as  were  the  Europeans  of  their  day.  They  had 
built  great  temples,  had  an  educated  priesthood,  paid  some 
attention  to  public  instruction,  possessed  a  judiciary, 
members  of  which  were  appointed  for  life,  and  had  a  ruler 
who  was  elected  to  office.  We  know  that  they  built  a  great 
city  hi  the  valley  of  Anahuac  hi  the  high  plateau  region. 
This  city  contained  300,000  inhabitants,  had  a  great  market 
place  where  on  certain  days  a  fifth  of  the  population  gath- 
ered to  purchase  finely  woven  cloths,  gold  and  silver  orna- 
ments, sweetmeats,  and  foodstuffs  of  various  kinds.  The 
city  was  everywhere  intersected  by  canals,  for  it  had  been 


MEXICO'S  FUTURE  37 

built  upon  the  bed  of  a  disappearing  lake.  It  was  such  a 
community  that  Cortez  and  his  doughty  warriors  found 
after  they  had  fought  their  way  up  from  the  tropics  to  the 
foot  of  the  majestic  Popocatepetl. 

What  happened  is  familiar  to  all  of  you.  The  Spaniards, 
with  insatiable  greed  for  gold  and  fanatical  zeal  to  advance 
the  cross,  crushed  these  people  with  a  cruelty,  the  relent- 
lessness  of  which  shocks  readers  of  the  history  of  that 
period  even  to  this  day.  It  would  be  unfair  to  the  Span- 
iard to  attribute  to  him  all  of  the  ills  of  present-day  Mexico. 
Some  time  ago  I  heard  Vicente  Blasco  Ibanez,  that  gifted 
novelist,  brilliant  orator  and  sparkling  conversationalist, 
pay  an  eloquent  tribute  to  the  courage  and  dauntlessness 
of  this  little  band  that  conquered  an  empire,  and  they 
deserved  it,  if  bravery  and  the  spirit  of  adventure  are  the 
only  measures  to  be  applied  in  judging  of  their  conduct. 
The  conquest  of  Mexico  is  an  epic  the  like  of  which  has 
never  been  paralleled  in  history.  But  while  the  Spaniards 
built  magnificent  temples  and  stamped  some  of  the  strength 
of  the  Iberian  on  the  country,  not  even  the  eloquence  of 
an  Ibanez  can  erase  the  blot  which  is  all  that  remains  of 
the  civilization  of  the  early  Mexican  people.  There  can 
be  no  quibble  over  this  fact  of  history,  for  we  have  it  from 
the  pen  of  a  Spaniard  himself — Las  Casas — who  devoted 
his  life  in  an  attempt  to  right  the  great  wrong  committed 
by  the  Spaniard. 

The  man  from  Spain  and  his  descendants  dominated 
Mexico  for  three  centuries,  and  the  work  of  cruelty  begun 
by  Cortez  extended  over  that  entire  period,  until  the  Mexi- 
can became  a  mere  serf,  almost  a  dumb  creature.  When  the 
war  for  independence  was  begun,  it  was  not  the  Mexicans, 
but  the  Spanish  Creoles  who  started  it.  Iturbide  was  of 
almost  pure  Spanish  blood  and  he  was  the  first  hero  in 
Mexican  history.  His  empire  did  not  last  longer  than 
some  of  the  succeeding  presidencies.  That  Spain  wrote 
her  rubrics  large  across  the  face  of  Mexico  and  the  rest  of 
Latin  America  is  a  fact;  that  she  crushed  the  Mexican 
people  in  the  process  is,  for  our  purpose,  a  more  important 
truth. 


38  JAMES   CARSON 

Since  the  last  of  the  Spanish  troops,  under  O'Donoju, 
marched  down  the  slopes  to  Vera  Cruz,  that  port  through 
which  the  Spaniards  had  first  entered  the  country  three 
centuries  before,  Mexico,  with  two  exceptions,  has  been 
dominated  by  men  of  mixed  Spanish  blood,  mestizos  who 
have  retained  the  political  traits  and  traditions  of  the  one- 
time mother  country.  These  men  constitute  less  than  three 
per  cent  of  the  population  and  are  known  to  the  outside 
world  and  designated  by  many  foreign  observers  as  "the 
Mexican  people."  They  are  not.  The  real  Mexican  peo- 
ple consist  of  some  13,000,000  of  Indian  blood,  the  dregs 
of  a  once  powerful  and  progressive  race.  The  Mexican 
problem  resolves  itself  into  a  question  of  whether  or  not 
these  people  can  come  back  if  the  opportunity  is  given  them. 

Critics  and  scoffers  of  this  view  point  (and  unfortunately 
these  two  terms  are  often  too  nearly  synonymous  when 
treating  of  Mexican  affairs)  point  to  the  fact  that  since  the 
days  of  the  first  presidency  of  Guadalupe  Victoria,  in  1821, 
there  have  been  seventy-three  distinct  administrations,  and 
that  the  average  tenure  of  a  chief  executive  of  Mexico  has 
been  less  than  one  year.  This,  of  course,  is  historically 
true,  but  this  long  and  discouraging  record  of  constant 
treacheries,  revolutions  and  governmental  turnovers  was 
broken  by  two  regimes  characterized  by  real  patriotism  and 
progress.  Is  it  not  hopeful  that  these  two  administrations 
were  those  of  men  of  Indian  blood? 

When  we  speak  of  an  Indian  in  Mexico  we  speak  of  a 
Mexican.  What  are  the  facts,  historically?  Seventy-three 
administrations  in  less  than  one  hundred  years.  One  of 
these,  that  of  Benito  Juarez,  a  pure-blooded  Indian,  saved 
the  sovereignty  of  his  country  and  drove  the  foreign  invader 
from  its  shores;  the  other,  that  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  an  Indian, 
gave  to  the  land  thirty-six  years  of  peace  and  prosperity, 
and  a  material  development  and  wellbeing  which  demon- 
strates the  possibilities  of  the  future.  Seventy-one  admini- 
strations by  inheritors  of  Spanish  traditions  were  failures, 
two  by  men  of  Indian  blood  were  successes.  Is  it  not  fair 
to  assume  that  it  is  within  the  realm  of  probability  that  the 
Indian  can  come  back? 


MEXICO'S  FUTURE  39 

The  character  of  the  Mexican  Indian  is  much  misunder- 
stood. He  is  naturally  serious,  docile  and  industrious. 
Centuries  of  domination  have  made  him  childlike,  and  for 
that  reason  he  is  easily  led.  The  mestizo,  politician  and 
military  chieftain,  take  full  advantage  of  this  trait  and  thus 
find  it  comparatively  easy  to  keep  the  revolutionary  pot 
boiling.  Under  the  leadership  of  such  men  the  Indian  has 
committed  horrible  atrocities,  but  the  belief  that  by  nature 
he  is  bloodthirsty  and  warlike  is  wholly  erroneous. 

For  the  past  nine  years  the  Indian  has  been  fighting  furi- 
ously, now  at  the  beck  of  one  leader,  again  at  the  call  of 
another.  There  are  abundant  signs  at  present  that  this 
sort  of  thing  is  at  last  palling  upon  him;  that  after  decades 
of  deceit  he  is  beginning  to  see  the  light.  He  is  tired  of 
fighting.  He  is  commencing  to  see  that  the  type  of  leader 
he  has  so  long  blindly  followed  is  more  interested  in  sustain- 
ing himself  than  in  ruling  for  the  benefit  of  the  country. 
In  this  awakening  lies  the  hope  of  the  future  for  Mexico. 

Two  factors  have  been  largely  responsible  for  this  change 
in  the  native  Mexican.  One  of  these  has  been  the  disil- 
lusionment resulting  from  years  of  bloody  fighting  which 
have  brought  him  nothing  but  poverty  and  misery ;  the  other, 
the  uplifting  influence  of  great  American  and  other  foreign 
business  enterprises  and  American  business  men  who  have 
gone  into  his  country  to  develop  its  natural  resources.  No 
single  thing  has  done  as  much  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the 
Mexican  of  the  lower  class  as  has  the  example  of  the  pro- 
gressive foreigner.  Americans  built  the  railways  in  Mex- 
ico, more  than  15,000  kilometers  of  them.  In  doing  so  they 
developed  artisans,  such  as  machinists,  carpenters,  black- 
smiths, and  a  multitude  of  other  skilled  craftsmen.  They 
raised  the  standards  of  living  and  the  daily  wage  of  the 
worker.  They  did  this  deliberately,  and  the  influence  of 
these  pioneer  builders  spread  to  other  great  concerns  oper- 
ating mines,  mills  and  factories.  These  mechanics  formed 
the  nucleus  of  the  middle  class  which  in  the  near  future  will 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Mexico  begin  to  assert 
itself.  These  Americans  taught,  but  they  did  so  by  example 
rather  than  by  precept.  Mexico  has  an  educational  sys- 


40  JAMES   CARSON 

tern,  but  like  much  that  was  inherited  from  Spain  it  is 
hollow — a  matter  of  form  rather  than  substance.  The  great 
need  of  the  people  today  is  for  vocational  training,  and 
the  genius  of  the  American  for  organization  will  supply 
this  if  he  is  given  an  opportunity  to  help  the  Mexican  to 
develop  the  vast  riches  of  his  country.  This  is  the  only 
kind  of  intervention  that  is  thinkable.  Armed  intervention 
by  the  United  States  would  be  a  calamity,  the  effects  of 
which  would  be  felt  for  many  decades  to  come  in  the  sus- 
picion and  lack  of  esteem  in  which  the  United  States  would 
be  held  by  the  other  republics  of  the  western  hemisphere. 
Such  a  movement  would  be  a  mistake,  not  only  from  the 
standpoint  of  justice,  but  also  from  that  of  political 
expediency. 

The  two  great  dangers  which  confront  the  present  Govern- 
ment are  those  of  militarism  and  the  inaccessibility  of  vast 
stretches  of  territory  which  make  the  Central  Government 
little  more  than  a  name  to  the  people  inhabiting  them. 
Militarism  has  always  been  the  curse  of  Mexico  and  if  the 
liberal  government,  which  has  just  taken  over  the  reins  of 
power,  allows  itself  to  be  dominated  by  the  ambitions  of 
the  various  chieftains  who  have  hastened  to  give  it  allegi- 
ence,  it  will  be  in  great  danger  of  going  the  way  of  other 
governments.  Nullifying  this  threat  of  disaster  is  the  gen- 
eral sentiment  of  the  country  against  a  further  continuance 
of  fighting  of  any  kind. 

Conditions  existing  at  the  present  time  are  somewhat 
analogous  to  those  which  prevailed  in  the  early  seventies, 
just  before  Porfirio  Diaz  assumed  supreme  control.  At 
that  time  the  country  had  been  bled  white  by  a  succession 
of  revolutions  which  had  stretched  over  the  previous  half 
century.  It  wanted  a  strong  hand  at  the  helm  to  stamp 
out  banditry  and  give  the  people  an  opportunity  to  follow 
their  peaceful  pursuits.  Diaz  proved  to  be  such  a  man. 
Will  Obregon  measure  up  to  these  standards?  Those  who 
know  him  well  believe  that  he  will  do  so.  He  is  young, 
vigorous  and  patriotic  and  his  expressed  desire  to  live  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  United  States  will  greatly  aid  him 
in  his  tremendous  task.  Carranza  might  have  been  the 


MEXICO'S  FUTURE  41 

greatest  man  in  Mexican  history  had  he  been  willing  to  link 
the  destinies  of  his  country  with  those  of  the  United  States 
and  her  allies  in  the  great  world  war.  When  he  chose  to  do 
otherwise  he  sealed  his  doom. 

Even  with  peace,  the  task  of  reconstruction  in  Mexico 
is  one  that  calls  for  administrative  genius  of  the  highest 
order.  Few  people  realize  the  great  extent  of  Mexico  ter- 
ritorially. It  has  more  than  767,000  square  miles,  com- 
prising an  area  greater  than  all  of  Western  Europe,  and 
equalling  that  of  Great  Britain,  France,  Belgium,  Holland, 
Denmark,  the  German  Empire,  Switzerland,  Italy,  Greece 
and  Cuba.  Although  telegraphic  communication  is  main- 
tained with  practically  all  of  this  territory,  and  more  than 
10,000  miles  of  railway  connect  up  its  principal  cities, 
there  are  still  entire  regions  where  the  inhabitants  live  in 
most  primitive  style,  weaving  the  fabrics  for  their  very 
simple  clothing  and  obtaining  their  food  as  did  their  ances- 
tors centuries  before.  Often  these  people  know  no  Spanish, 
speaking  their  native  dialects  of  which  philologists  tell  us 
there  are  sixty-five  separate  and  distinct  ones.  To  attempt 
to  judge  Mexico  by  its  capital  city,  or  by  the  various  other 
thriving  centers  of  population  in  some  of  the  better  known 
states,  is  as  futile  as  to  try  to  get  a  picture  of  our  own  coun- 
try by  examining  a  cross-cut  section  of  the  East  Side  of  the 
City  of  New  York. 

There  are  certain  natural  and  economic  laws  which  work 
inevitably.  Because  of  her  geographical  position,  Mexico 
must  always  be  closely  linked  to  the  United  States  of 
America.  No  false  Chauvinism  on  the  part  of  Mexican 
politicians  can  change  this  condition  of  affairs.  Further- 
more, the  vast  riches  of  the  country  are  needed  by  the 
entire  world.  This  is  an  age  of  steel  and  oil,  and  just  as 
coal  and  iron  spelled  dominance  in  the  past  half  century,  so 
these  two  first  mentioned  commodities  will  determine  lead- 
ership in  the  present.  Mexico  is  rich  in  the  elements  of 
both  of  these.  She  is  also  abundantly  provided  with  every- 
thing else  man  wants.  What  Baron  Humboldt  said  more 
than  a  century  ago  is  true  today:  Mexico  is  "The  Treasure 
House  of  the  World."  If  her  people  can  be  aided  and 


42  JAMES   CARSON 

guided  in  developing  them,  her  future  is  secure;  but  always 
it  is  essential  to  differentiate  the  Mexican  people  from  the 
Mexican  politician. 

I  have  found  it  helpful,  in  trying  to  think  logically  on  the 
Mexican  question,  to  consider  that  country  as  a  patient 
and  to  endeavor  through  an  analysis  of  the  happenings  of 
the  past  to  arrive  at  a  diagnosis  that  may  be  reasonable, 
intelligent  and  sympathetic.  There  is  nothing  uncompli- 
mentary intended  towards  that  nation  in  this  method  of 
approach  for  I  have  always  been  a  warm  admirer  of  the 
Republic  and  its  people. 

It  is  undeniable  that  Mexico  is  suffering  from  a  disease 
which  from  tune  to  tune  during  the  past  one  hundred 
years  has  threatened  its  existence  as  a  sovereign  State.  It 
is  deep  seated  and  its  source  can  be  traced  to  the  Iberian 
peninsula  and  the  Spaniard.  Like  most  grave  illnesses  it  is 
complicated,  and  seemingly  contradictory  evidence  baffles 
the  efforts  of  the  diagnostician.  It  is  the  sick  man  of  the 
West  as  is  Turkey  of  the  East.  It  is  suffering  from  an  ail- 
ment produced  by  the  political  philosophy  of  the  Iberian 
as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  Anglo  Saxon.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  speculate  on  what  might  have  happened  had  the 
foreign  penetration  of  the  Aztec  Empire  been  postponed  one 
hundred  years  and  a  man  of  the  stripe  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
had  sailed  into  the  harbor  of  Vera  Cruz  instead  of  one  of 
the  ilk  of  that  giant  of  adventuresomeness,  Hernan  Cortez. 
'  While  there  is  much  to  admire  in  the  character  of  the 
Spaniard  and  some  of  the  pages  he  has  written  in  history 
are  unmatched  by  the  achievements  of  any  other,  the  gen- 
ius for  self-government  is  not  one  of  these.  This  is  true 
despite  the  fact  that  individualism  is  the  basic  note  of 
Spanish  psychology,  an  Iberian  characteristic  which  has  all 
the  force  of  an  imperious  atavism,  and  that  the  present-day 
Latin  American  is  the  product  of  that  fierce  strain  of  reli- 
gious fanaticism  which  the  Moors  brought  into  Spain,  and 
of  that  assertive  love  of  self-government  expressed  in  the 
charter  of  Leon  in  the  year  1020,  antedating  the  Magna 
Charta  wrested  from  King  John  and  making  liberty  and 
democracy  of  more  ancient  date  in  Spain  than  in  England. 


MEXICO'S  FUTURE  43 

What  is  wanted  now  in  Mexico  is  an  invasion  of  capital, 
books,  ideas  and  ideals  which  shall  rid  the  country  of  the 
political  poison  which  lingers  as  a  Spanish  inheritance. 
This  is  the  sort  of  an  intervention  which  will  be  the  salva- 
tion of  that  country.  Whether  or  not  it  will  come  depends 
upon  the  attitude  of  the  new  regime  towards  the  outside 
world,  and,  particularly,  the  United  States  of  America. 


THE  FACTOR  OF  HEALTH  IN  MEXICAN 
CHARACTER 

By  Ellsworth  Huntington,  Ph.D.,  Research  Associate,  Yale 

University;  formerly  Research  Associate  of  the  Carnegie 

Institution  for    Climatic  Investigations 

in  Mexico  and  Central  America 

People  who  talk  about  Mexico  often  go  to  extremes.  Those 
at  one  extreme  maintain  that  the  Mexicans  are  as  capable 
as  any  race  in  the  world.  All  they  need  is  education,  re- 
ligion, good  government,  and  a  "chance."  Those  at  the 
other  extreme  say  that  the  Mexicans  are  racially  inferior; 
the  Indians  are  hopelessly  stupid  and  dull,  while  the  Span- 
iards are  by  nature  mercurial  and  volatile.  Every  sensible 
person  recognizes  that  neither  of  these  extremes  is  true; 
yet  they  color  our  thinking  to  a  dangerous  extent.  Many 
of  those  who  are  most  unselfishly  interested  in  the  future 
of  Mexico  seem  to  be  wasting  much  of  their  effort  because 
they  will  not  squarely  face  the  fact  that  the  Mexican  is 
different  from  the  American  of  the  United  States,  and  no 
amount  of  education,  religion,  good  government,  or  oppor- 
tunity will  make  him  the  same.  On  the  other  hand  a 
great  many  people  who  know  Mexico  thoroughly  and  sym- 
pathetically destroy  their  own  influence  by  assuming  that 
the  evils  which  are  so  patent  in  Mexico  are  due  to  the  sup- 
posed racial  incapacity  of  the  Mexicans. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  Indian  blood  does  give 
Mexico  an  inheritance  different  from  that  of  our  own  people, 
and  even  the  Spanish  blood  is  marked  by  inherent  traits 
which  differ  from  those  of  the  races  of  northern  Europe. 
Nevertheless,  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  the  condition 
of  Mexico  as  we  see  it  today  is  due  solely,  or  even  primarily 
to  this  inheritance.  In  fact,  we  do  not  know  what  the 
Mexican  inheritance  is,  or  what  it  might  achieve  if  placed 
under  the  right  surroundings.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 

44 


HEALTH   IN   MEXICAN   CHARACTEE  45 

equally  unscientific  to  assume  that  if  the  educational,  social, 
political,  and  religious  conditions  of  Mexico  were  made 
perfect,  the  Mexicans  would  be  able  to  maintain  what  we 
commonly  call  a  high  civilization.  How  can  we  know  until 
we  have  a  clear  idea  as  to  the  racial  capacity  of  Mexico? 

One  of  the  greatest  reasons  for  our  blurred  ideas  as  to 
the  relative  importance  of  race  on  the  one  hand  and  social 
organization  on  the  other,  is  our  almost  complete  disregard 
of  the  great  realm  that  lies  between  the  two.  The  name  of 
that  realm  is  health.  A  nation  of  chronic  and  incurable 
invalids  cannot  possibly  make  great  progress  no  matter  how 
fine  may  be  its  inheritance  or  how  perfect  its  social  system. 
At  least  it  cannot  make  progress  unless  it  finds  some  means 
of  curing  itself. 

Mexico  may  almost  be  called  a  nation  of  invalids.  It  has 
three  times  as  much  sickness  as  the  northern  United  States. 
The  death-rate  is  universally  recognized  as  by  far  the  best 
measure  of  the  health  of  a  nation.  The  outstanding  fact 
about  the  death-rate  in  Mexico  City  is  that  for  the  past 
ten  years  it  has  averaged  not  far  from  forty-five.  Yet 
Mexico  City  lies  on  the  cool,  lofty  plateau  and  has  been 
supposed  to  be  one  of  the  healthiest  parts  of  Mexico.  Of 
course  the  Mexican  mortality  statistics  are  very  imperfect; 
but  that  only  makes  the  situation  worse.  No  matter  how 
bad  may  be  the  system  of  mortality  records,  a  death  that 
does  not  occur  is  never  put  on  record.  A  great  many  deaths 
however,  fail  to  be  recorded  because  no  physician  or  priest 
is  summoned.  Or  if  the  priest  and  physician  are  present 
they  forget  to  send  in  the  record.  Until  one  studies  the 
mortality  records  in  a  supposedly  advanced  country  like 
our  own,  one  has  no  idea  of  how  difficult  it  is  to  secure  ac- 
curacy even  when  'fine  organizations  like  our  Census  Bureau 
and  our  local  boards  of  health  are  making  the  most  strenu- 
ous efforts.  Thus  it  seems  practically  certain  that  in  Mex- 
ico City  the  amount  of  sickness  and  death  is  at  least  three 
times  as  great  as  in  the  cities  of  the  northern  United  States. 

In  extenuation  of  this  deplorable  state  of  affairs  it  has 
sometimes  been  claimed  that  Mexico  City  suffers  from  a 
low  swampy  situation  and  from  worse  conditions  of  drain- 


46  ELLSWORTH   HUNTINGTON 

age  than  do  other  parts  of  the  Mexican  plateau.  As  I 
have  shown  elsewhere,1  however,  there  is  no  evidence  that 
the  capital  is  any  worse  than  the  smaller  Mexican  towns 
and  villages  except  as  all  large  cities  are  at  a  disadvantage 
simply  because  of  their  size  and  the  consequent  poor  hous- 
ing, over-crowding,  and  bad  air.  Moreover,  the  supposed 
bad  effect  of  the  low  swampy  situation  of  Mexico  City  in 
the  bed  of  what  was  once  a  lake  can  hardly  account  for  the 
city's  poor  health,  for  strangely  enough  the  death-rate  falls 
notably  as  soon  as  the  wet  season  begins.  Yet  that  is  the 
very  time  when  the  lake-bed  becomes  swampy  and  its  bad 
effects  should  be  at  a  maximum.  In  a  word,  it  appears  that 
aside  from  the  handicap  of  its  size,  Mexico  City  is  fairly 
typical  of  the  plateau  regions  of  Mexico  where  the  great 
majority  of  the  population  is  located.  The  lowlands  cer- 
tainly are  no  better.  At  Vera  Cruz,  the  only  other  Mexican 
city  where  the  mortality  statistics  are  of  any  appreciable 
value,  the  death-rate  appears  to  be  about  the  same  as  at 
the  capital.  Vera  Cruz  has  the  advantage  of  being  only  a 
tenth  as  large  as  Mexico  City,  but  even  so,  it  is  surprising 
that  a  low,  hot,  tropical  city  on  the  sea-coast  should  be  no 
worse  than  the  high,  cool,  temperate  city  on  the  plateau. 
Nevertheless  a  study  of  the  comparative  mortality  of  many 
parts  of  the  world  indicates  that  if  a  few  plagues  like  yellow 
fever  and  malaria  are  kept  down,  the  cities  of  tropical  sea- 
coasts  are  at  least  as  healthy  as  those  of  dry  tropical  inte- 
riors and  perhaps  even  of  plateaus. 

What  has  been  said  above  implies  that  Mexico  as  a  whole 
is  at  least  three  times  as  unhealthful  as  a  state  like  New 
York,  for  example.  But  the  disparity  between  the  Mexican 
conditions  and  those  among  the  readers  of  this  article  is 
even  greater.  It  is  well  known  that  intelligent  people  of 
the  educated  classes  suffer  much  less  from  sickness  and 

1  Ellsworth  Huntington :  The  Relation  of  Health  to  Racial  Capacity : 
The  Example  of  Mexico.  To  be  published  shortly  in  the  Geographical 
Review.  The  article  here  referred  to  deals  with  the  same  subject  as  the 
present  article,  but  considers  it  from  the  geographic  standpoint  with 
special  reference  to  climate  and  with  comparisons  between  Mexico  and 
other  regions.  Thus  the  two  articles  supplement  each  other  and  should 
be  read  together. 


HEALTH   IN   MEXICAN   CHAEACTER  47 

death  than  do  the  ignorant  and  poverty  stricken.  Hence  it 
seems  conservative  to  say  that  among  Mexicans  as  a  whole 
there  is  four  times  as  much  sickness  and  death  as  among 
the  readers  of  this  article  and  their  families  and  friends; 
while  even  among  the  upper  classes  of  Mexico  there  is  three 
times  as  much  as  among  our  similar  classes. 

The  effect  of  widespread  ill  health  upon  children  is  much 
worse  than  upon  adults.  For  Mexico  I  have  not  been  able 
to  secure  the  exact  figures,  but  a  comparison  of  the  most 
healthful  countries  of  Europe,  namely,  Norway,  Sweden, 
Denmark,  and  Holland,  with  three  of  the  most  unhealthful, 
namely  Bulgaria,  Servia  and  Rumania  as  they  were  before 
the  Great  War,  will  make  the  matter  clear.  Making  a 
slight  allowance  for  the  imperfections  of  the  records  in  the 
more  backward  countries,2  and  eliminating  other  errors  by 
the  use  of  a  "standard  population,"  it  appears  that  the 
death  rate  in  the  three  Balkan  countries  under  normal 
conditions  is  about  2.2  times  as  great  as  in  the  four  Scandi- 
navian countries.  This  ratio,  however,  varies  according  to 
age,  as  appears  in  column  A  of  the  following  table : 

A  B 

Children  under  one  year  of  age 4.0  (?)        7.2  (?) 

Children  one  to  4  years  of  age 3.5  6.3 

Children  5  to  14  years  of  age 3.0  5.4 

Young  people,  15  to  24  years  of  age 2.2  4.0 

Adults,  25  to  34  years  of  age 2.1  3.9 

Adults,  35  to  44  years  of  age 2.0  3.7 

Adults,  45  to  54  years  of  age 1.9  3.5 

Adults,  55  to  75  years  of  age 1.8  3.3 

Between  Mexico  and  the  United  States  the  difference  in 
health  likewise  is  greatest  in  early  youth  and  decreases  with 
age.  If  we  assume  that  the  change  from  age  to  age  is  the 
same  as  in  Europe,  the  amount  of  ill  health  and  death  in 
Mexico  compared  with  the  upper  classes  in  the  United 
States  varies  as  appears  in  column  B.  In  other  words, 
where  one  baby  under  a  year  old  dies  among  the  babies  of 
your  acquaintances,  over  seven  probably  die  in  Mexico. 
Where  one  of  the  children  aged  one  to  four  is  ill  among 

2  The  method  of  making  these  corrections  together  with  a  full  discussion 
of  the  significance  of  the  data  in  respect  to  Europe  will  form  part  of  a 
volume  to  be  published  shortly  under  the  title  "Europe." 


48 


ELLSWORTH   HUNTINGTON 


your  friends,  six  are  ill  in  Mexico.  Even  among  adults 
there  is  three  times  as  much  disease  and  death  as  among 
your  friends,  but  the  older  people  are  much  better  off  than 
the  children.3 

1  Since  this  article  was  in  type  Mr.  Wallace  Thompson  has  kindly  fur- 
nished me  with  the  Mexican  mortality  rates  given  below  in  column  A.  They 
are  taken  from  a  book  on  Mexico  which  he  expects  to  publish  shortly,  and 
are  based  on  the  Mexican  census  of  1910.  This  census  makes  the  death  rate 
for  Mexico  as  a  whole  30.8  for  the  year  in  question,  or  approximately  two 
thirds  of  the  average  rate  for  Mexico  City.  Anyone  who  is  familiar  with 
mortality  statistics  will  realize  that  Mexican  data  collected  only  for  a 
single  year  in  connection  with  the  decennial  census  are  sure  to  be  much 
farther  below  the  truth  than  are  the  statistics  for  Mexico  City  which  are 
collected  regularly  every  year.  In  Mexico,  as  in  the  more  backward  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  there  is  especial  negligence  in  recording  the  deaths  of  young 
children,  and  to  a  less  degree,  of  old  people.  Hence  in  column  A  the  first 
two  numbers  and  the  last  are  scarcely  worth  regarding.  The  rest  are  fairly 
consistent,  although  their  irregularity  when  plotted  denotes  inaccuracy. 
Column  B  shows  similar  figures  for  native  whites  of  native  parentage  in 
the  registration  area  of  the  United  States  as  it  existed  in  1911,  but  exclud- 
ing the  three  most  southerly  states  included  at  that  time,  namely,  Mary- 
land, Kentucky,  and  North  Carolina.  Column  C  gives  the  number  of  times 
by  which  the  Mexican  figures  exceed  those  of  the  United  States.  The  last 
column  D,  is  an  attempt  to  correct  the  Mexican  figures  on  the  basis  of 
two  assumptions:  (1)  that  they  should  show  a  regularity  corresponding  to 
that  which  is  found  in  the  figures  of  advanced  regions  like  the  United  States; 
and  (2)  that  the  Mexican  figures  are  10  per  cent  too  low  in  the  better  por- 
tions of  the  table,  an  assumption  which  is  almost  certainly  too  low.  This 
last  column  approximates  the  truth,  although  it  makes  no  claim  to  be 
more  than  an  estimate.  It  is  important,  however,  that  this  estimate  based 
on  figures  for  the  whole  of  Mexico  in  comparison  with  the  most  populous 
part  of  the  United  States  is  in  substantial  agreement  with  the  previous 
estimate  based  on  Mexico  City  in  comparison  with  Europe. 


A 

B 

C 

D 

DEATH       RATE 

REPORTED 

AMONG  NATIVE 

CORRECTED 

MEXICAN  DEATH 

WHITES  OP  NA- 

RATIO    OP      A 

ESTIMATE       OF 

RATE    PER 

TIVE     PARENT- 

TO B 

TRUE  RATIO  OF 

THOUSAND  1910 

AGE   IN  THE 

A  TO  B 

UNITED  STATES 

1911 

Under  1  year  

365.0 

102.2 

3.6 

7.7 

Under  5  years  

89.5 

29.8 

3.0 

6.9 

5-9  years  

16.0 

3.1 

5.2 

5.7 

10-14  years  

11.  0(?) 

2.2 

5.0(?) 

4.8 

15-19  years  

12.1 

3.4 

3.6 

4.0 

20-29  years  

14.4 

5.0 

2.9 

3.4 

30-44  years  

19.9 

6.2 

3.2 

3.2 

45-60  years*  

35.2 

12.8 

2.8 

3.1 

Over  60  years*  

97.7 

64.6 

1.5 

3.0 

*  65  years,  United  States. 


HEALTH  IN  MEXICAN  CHARACTER  49 

Let  us  now  apply  our  results  to  character.  In  order  to 
gain  some  idea  of  what  ill  health  does  in  Mexico,  try  to 
picture  a  community  in  which  the  children  have  from  five  to 
seven  times  as  much  illness  as  have  the  children  of  your 
neighbors,  and  where  the  adults  have  three  or  four  times  as 
much  illness  as  have  you  and  your  friends.  Ask  yourself 
how  much  difference  it  would  make  in  will  power,  self- 
control,  initiative,  originality,  education,  and  many  other 
qualities.  The  answers  are  so  obvious  that  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  set  them  forth  in  detail.  That  they  apply  to 
Mexico  can  scarcely  be  doubted  when  one  considers  the 
physique,  education,  temperament,  and  achievements  of  the 
Mexicans  whom  one  has  known. 

Since  children  are  more  plastic  than  adults  and  are  more 
affected  by  conditions  of  ill  health,  we  may  briefly  sketch 
what  would  be  likely  to  happen  in  our  own  community  if  a 
generation  should  grow  up  having  six  times  as  much  ill 
health  as  is  the  lot  of  our  present  generation.  The  first 
result  would  be  that  as  infants  the  children  would  fret  and 
cry  much  more  than  now,  and  they  would  continue  to  do 
this  to  a  later  age  than  at  present.  That  in  itself  may  seem 
no  great  matter,  but  it  leads  to  serious  consequences.  The 
fretful,  sickly  child  is  apt  to  be  pampered  by  its  parents; 
its  little  whims  receive  undue  attention;  it  gets  the  toy,  the 
petting,  and  the  candy  that  it  cries  for;  it  learns  to  think 
that  its  desires  are  the  thing  that  all  the  world  must  satisfy. 
If  that  sort  of  training  goes  on  till  a  child  is  a  dozen  years 
old,  the  child  is  "  spoiled."  It  becomes  selfish,  self-indul- 
gent, and  self-willed.  Such  spoiled  children  are  under  an- 
other serious  handicap.  They  are  apt  to  be  very  trying  to 
their  elders,  and  if  the  elders  are  not  strong  minded  and 
self-controlled,  they  are  likely  to  lose  their  tempers  and 
treat  the  children  roughly.  Among  sickly,  nervous  par- 
ents this  is  much  more  likely  to  happen  than  among  those 
who  are  well.  Almost  everyone  has  seen  the  sad  results 
when  weak  parents  alternately  pamper  their  children  and 
then  turn  on  them  in  sudden  rage.  With  children  of  a 
nervous  type  such  treatment  combined  with  poor  health  is 
apt  to  lead  to  irritability  and  high  temper.  The  duller, 


50  ELLSWORTH  HUNTINGTON 

slower  types,  on  the  contrary,  are  apt  to  become  phlegmatic, 
listless,  and  patiently  submissive. 

When  the  time  comes  for  the  sickly  child  to  begin  its 
education,  there  is  often  much  delay.  Then  when  school 
work  is  finally  begun,  it  is  irregular.  Because  the  child  is 
sick  it  is  kept  at  home,  and  naturally  it  falls  behind  in  its 
classes.  Even  when  it  happens  to  attend  school  regularly 
for  some  time,  not  only  its  teachers  and  parents,  but  the 
child  itself  makes  excuses  for  its  shortcomings  on  the  ground 
of  its  previous  handicaps.  Of  course  a  bright  child  who  suf- 
fers from  poor  health  will  do  much  better  work  than  a  dull 
child  who  has  the  best  of  health,  but  that  is  not  the  point. 
The  essential  point  is  that  the  bright  child  will  not  learn 
to  apply  himself  steadily  and  constantly.  He  will  lose  that 
sense  of  shame  which  comes  to  any  right-minded  child  when 
he  finds  himself  falling  behind  his  peers.  Or  if  he  keeps  the 
sense  of  shame,  he  will  be  tempted  to  resort  to  subterfuges 
to  hide  his  deficiencies.  And  often  he  will  be  filled  with 
jealousy  or  perhaps  will  be  led  to  cheat. 

It  would  be  easy  to  go  on  with  a  long  category  of  the  moral 
handicaps  which  come  to  a  child  that  suffers  from  ill  health. 
An  adult  who  has  had  good  health  in  youth  may  make  poor 
health  a  stepping  stone  to  great  sweetness  of  character. 
Sometimes  even  a  child  may  do  the  same.  Yet  as  we  look 
around  at  the  people  of  our  acquaintance  we  see  that  in 
general  those  who  have  suffered  much  from  poor  health  in 
childhood  have  not  developed  the  strength  of  character 
nor  the  power  of  concentration,  self-control  and  achievement 
that  have  come  to  those  who  have  been  well.  The  faults 
of  those  who  have  had  poor  health,  their  superficial  educa- 
tion, their  tendency  to  resent  the  implication  that  they  can- 
not achieve  as  much  as  their  more  fortunate  fellows,  and 
their  tendency  to  excuse  their  own  short-comings  and  to 
magnify  those  powers  which  they  do  possess — all  these  are 
typical  of  the  faults  of  the  Mexicans  who  possess  a  large 
share  of  Spanish  blood.  So,  too,  the  phlegmatic  submis- 
siveness  of  the  sickly  child  who  is  born  with  a  stolid  brain, 
and  his  tendency  to  lose  his  self-control  completely  when 
once  the  breaking  point  is  reached  are  characteristic  of  the 


HEALTH   IN   MEXICAN   CHARACTER  51 

duller  Mexican  types — those  with  a  greater  share  of  Indian 
blood. 

Health  stands,  as  it  were,  between  inheritance  or  racial 
character  on  the  one  side,  and  the  social,  political,  religious, 
and  educational  systems  on  the  other.  It  neither  adds  to, 
nor  takes  away  from  inheritance,  but  it  helps  to  determine 
the  skill  and  energy  with  which  inherent  traits  shall  be 
developed  and  used.  Nor  can  health  in  itself  add  anything 
to  the  social  and  other  systems  in  which  the  Mexicans  live, 
but  it  is  of  the  greatest  value  in  providing  good  material 
on  which  those  systems  may  work.  No  sane  teacher  would 
hesitate  a  minute  between  a  class  of  healthy,  hearty,  happy 
little  urchins,  even  though  they  were  full  of  the  Old  Nick, 
and  a  class  of  sickly,  weakly,  self-centered  little  youngsters 
no  matter  how  submissive.  So,  too,  a  teacher  of  religion,  a 
social  worker,  an  office-holder,  a  business  man  who  has 
grown  up  in  sturdy  self-reliance  without  much  thought  of 
himself  and  his  ills  is  likely  to  prove  much  more  useful  than 
one  who  has  grown  up  with  the  habit  of  relying  on  others 
and  who  is  constantly  wondering  whether  he  does  not  need 
to  take  a  day  off  because  he  does  not  feel  quite  like  work. 

If  it  be  true  that  health  plays  an  important  part  in  mold- 
ing the  character  of  the  Mexicans,  the  inevitable  conclusion 
is  that  those  who  have  Mexico's  regeneration  at  heart  should 
do  as  much  for  health  as  they  are  doing  for  education, 
religion,  politics,  and  business.  It  is  not  enough  to  heal 
the  sick,  or  to  stamp  out  epidemics.  Disease  must  be  pre- 
vented and  good  health  must  be  made  the  rule.  The  task 
will  not  be  easy.  In  fact,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,4  the 
climate  of  Mexico,  even  on  the  highlands,  interposes  a 
handicap  which  can  probably  never  be  overcome  entirely. 
Nevertheless,  if  to  our  present  knowledge  of  sanitation  and 
preventive  medicine  there  be  added  an  equally  thorough 
knowledge  of  just  what  effects  are  produced  by  climate  and 
how  they  can  be  met,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  amount 
of  ill  health  in  Mexico  can  be  reduced  at  least  one  half  and 
perhaps  more.  To  make  Mexico  a  healthful  country 

4  Ellsworth  Huntington:  The  Relation  of  Health  to  Racial  Capacity: 
The  Example  of  Mexico.  Geog,  Rev. 


52  ELLSWORTH  HUNTINGTON 

through  education  alone  is  a  long  and  discouraging  task. 
Unquestionably  education  in  hygiene  and  health  will  do 
much,  and  is  a  vital  necessity.  With  it,  however,  there  is 
need  of  actual  demonstration.  Moreover,  in  this,  as  in 
many  other  things,  the  Mexicans  need  foreign  leaders  in 
whom  they  have  full  confidence.  During  the  war  the  Red 
Cross  showed  as  never  before  what  can  be  done  by  a  vast 
organized  effort  to  promote  the  general  health.  The 
Rockefeller  Foundation  is  doing  the  same  thing  here  and 
there  over  the  world,  just  as  our  own  Public  Health  Service 
is  doing  it  in  various  parts  of  the  United  States.  We  talk 
about  our  duty  to  Mexico.  We  realize  that  if  we  are  to 
live  happily  with  her  we  must  bring  about  many  changes 
and  yet  must  bring  them  gently  and  without  arousing  the 
bitter  antagonism  which  flames  out  so  easily  when  we  are 
arrogant  and  self-assertive.  Moreover,  as  a  nation  we 
must  be  very  careful  not  to  give  the  Mexicans  the  feeling 
that  we  are  trying  to  exploit  them  politically  and  commer- 
cially. Even  the  most  chauvanistic  Mexican,  however, 
ought  not  to  object  if  the  International  Red  Cross  should 
take  the  health  of  Mexico  in  hand.  If  that  were  done  it 
would  seem  natural  that  the  majority  of  workers  should  be 
from  the  United  States  even  though  the  control  remained 
absolutely  international. 

If  tactful  methods  were  used  it  would  probably  be  possible 
to  secure  abundant  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  Mexicans 
themselves.  Towns  might  be  persuaded  to  advance  a  cer- 
tain sum  of  money  and  let  the  Red  Cross  direct  its  expendi- 
ture, with  the  understanding  that  the  Red  Cross  itself 
should  expend  a  proportional  amount.  At  first  the  sums 
pledged  by  the  Red  Cross  would  presumably  be  much 
larger  than  the  Mexican  appropriations.  Yet  if  the  value 
of  the  work  were  realized,  and  if  real  cooperation  were  es- 
tablished between  the  Mexicans  and  the  outsiders,  there  is 
a  reasonable  prospect  that  Mexico  herself  might  see  the 
need  of  large  expenditures.  Undoubtedly  there  are  many 
and  great  difficulties  in  any  such  plan.  Probably  rebuffs 
would  be  experienced  in  many  quarters,  but  there  is  one 
great  advantage.  The  plan  does  not  call  for  any  vast 


HEALTH   IN   MEXICAN   CHAEACTER  53 

expenditure  at  first.  It  merely  calls  for  a  trial  in  one 
town.  If  the  authorities  could  be  persuaded  to  enter  into 
a  five  or  ten-year  agreement  whereby  they  should  cooperate 
with  the  International  Red  Cross  in  making  the  city  thor- 
oughly healthful,  the  results  would  speak  for  themselves. 
If  they  were  good,  many  other  places  would  soon  be  clam- 
oring for  cooperation.  If  Red  Cross  workers,  with  the  spirit 
which  usually  animates  them,  were  spread  through  Mexico 
in  only  a  tenth  as  great  numbers  as  business  men,  the  feeling 
between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  would  assume  a 
warmth  and  cordiality  which  it  never  can  have  while  the 
Mexicans  feel  that  we  are  trying  to  exploit  them,  and  while 
we  feel  that  they  are  not  doing  their  share  to  make  their 
own  land  civilized.  Such  a  spirit  would  be  good  for  Mexico 
and  good  for  us;  good  for  business  and  good  for  politics. 
What  could  be  finer  than  for  thousands  of  our  young  people 
to  have  a  year  or  two  of  Red  Cross  service  in  an  interesting 
land  like  Mexico  at  the  end  of  their  college  courses.  Among 
all  the  countries  of  the  world  Mexico  is  the  one  where  our 
responsibility  is  greatest.  Among  all  the  fields  wherein  we 
can  help  that  country  none  is  so  neglected  as  public  health. 
Perhaps  this  open  field  offers  the  avenue  whereby  each 
country  can  most  fully  serve  the  other. 


THE  MEXICAN  OIL  SITUATION 

By  Frederic  R.  Kellogg,  General  Counsel  of  the  Pan  American 
Petroleum  and  Transport  Company 

I  do  not  think  that  you  would  have  invited  me  to  speak 
on  the  Mexican  oil  situation  tonight  if  the  title  of  my 
address  were  to  be  strictly  construed;  and  I  have,  there- 
fore, taken  the  liberty  of  interpreting  it  in  a  somewhat 
broader  sense. 

It  is  true  that  we  shall  deal  with  Mexican  problems;  but 
the  same  considerations  which  relate  to  matters  which 
happen  to  have  arisen  in  Mexico,  relate  also  to  every  other 
part  of  this  earth  where  American  men,  money  and  enter- 
prise may  penetrate. 

It  is  true  that  we  are  to  speak  of  oil;  but  the  questions 
involved  in  this  discussion  are  not  limited  to  this  particular 
commodity,  but  affect  all  commodities. 

It  is  also  true  that  while  we  are  to  look  tonight  upon  a 
situation  which  from  its  nature  can  only  be  a  temporary 
one,  nevertheless  the  principles  which  underlie  that  situation 
and  upon  which  it  must  eventually  be  resolved,  are  those 
which  will  determine  the  future  of  our  entire  foreign  com- 
mercial policy. 

Before  I  go  into  details  let  me  confess  that  the  years  which 
I  have  spent  hi  constant  struggling  with  these  questions, 
finding  them  on  my  desk  every  morning  and  not  even  being 
able  to  leave  them  there  at  night — of  constant  scanning  of 
the  horizon  to  see  what  new  spoliatory  schemes  had  been 
or  might  be  devised  by  the  ingenious  and  alert  minds  of  the 
Carranzista  faction — of  unremitting  endeavors  to  assist  in 
shaping  our  own  course  so  that  such  schemes  might  be 
counteracted  and  avoided,  have  not — I  admit  it  freely- 
predisposed  me  to  a  really  neutral  view  of  the  subject. 
Nor  have  they  predisposed  me  to  look  with  favor  upon 

54 


THE   MEXICAN   OIL   SITUATION  55 

glittering  generalities  about  the  "brotherhood  of  man"  and 
the  "  spiritual  unity  of  all  Pan-America/'  uttered  by  gentle- 
men who  have  had  no  actual  dealings  with  Carranza  offi- 
cials, and  no  practical  experience  in  Mexican  commercial 
affairs.  Nevertheless,  it  will  be  my  effort  to  limit  my  state- 
ments tonight  in  such  a  manner  that  at  the  conclusion  of 
my  remarks  you  will  find  that  the  greater  part  of  which  I 
shall  say  to  you  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  opinion  or  asser- 
tion on  my  part,  but  is  capable  of  verification  from  docu- 
mentary and  official  records. 

The  Mexican  oil  question  is  this: 

Shall  any  nation  within  whose  borders  American  citizens 
have  ventured  their  capital  and  their  lives  in  the  promotion 
of  industrial  enterprises  be  considered  as  having  the  right 
to  take  from  these  Americans  the  fruits  of  their  enterprises 
when  success  has  been  attained,  without  any  pretense  of 
compensation  or  any  shadow  of  title  other  than  that  which 
physical  force  may  furnish? 

The  question  resolves  itself  into  two  subdivisions.  In 
the  first  place,  it  involves  a  statement  of  the  circumstances 
which  especially  interest  the  oil  companies  themselves.  In 
the  second  place  it  is  my  intention  to  inquire  what  interest 
you  and  all  of  your  American  fellow  citizens  have  in  the 
outcome  of  this  controversy. 

First,  as  to  the  situation  of  the  oil  companies. 

The  commercial  development  of  petroleum  in  Mexico 
began  in  1900.  Prior  to  that  time  its  existence  in  Mexico 
had  been  recognized  as  a  scientific  fact;  but  until  that  year 
no  successful  effort  was  made  to  produce  it  commercially. 
In  1900  Messrs.  Efdward  L.  Doheny  and  Charles  A.  Canfield 
went  to  Mexico  and  acquired  their  first  properties.  They 
acquired  them  by  purchase  from  private  owners  who  had 
held  them  from  the  crown  of  Spain  by  continuous  chains  of 
titles  dating  back  three  hundred  years.  Messrs.  Doheny 
and  Canfield  were  not  then  and  never  since  have  been 
"  concessionaires."  They  have  never  asked  nor  received 
anything  from  the  government  of  Mexico.  They  never 


56  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

acquired  any  public  lands,  but  continued  their  acquisition 
of  properties  from  private  owners.  They  were  followed  by 
other  American  oil  companies,  all  of  whom  likewise  pursued 
the  same  policy.  An  English  company  obtained  a  conces- 
sion from  the  government  covering  a  large  extent  of  terri- 
tory, but  so  far  as  my  information  extends  no  oil  has  ever 
since  been  produced  from  it. 

The  essential  point  that  I  wish  to  make  entirely  plain  at 
the  present  moment  is  that  despite  the  many  reports  and 
statements  that  have  been  made  by  our  enemies  to  the  con- 
trary, the  truth  is  that  no  American  company  has  ever  had 
an  oil  concession  from  Mexico  at  any  time  since  the  beginning 
of  the  commercial  development  of  petroleum  in  that  country. 

At  all  times  during  the  acquisition  of  these  private  prop- 
erties the  law  of  Mexico  relative  to  titles  to  petroleum  was 
contained  in  three  statutes:  First,  the  law  of  1884;  second, 
the  law  of  1892;  and  third,  the  law  of  1909. 

All  of  these  statutes  contained  provisions  which  are  sub- 
stantially identical  and  are  entirely  unequivocal,  to  the 
effect  that  petroleum  belonged  to  the  owner  of  the  surface 
of  the  lands  and  might  be  developed  and  dealt  with  by  the 
surface  owner  as  he  saw  fit  without  governmental  license 
or  interference. 

In  other  words,  the  Republic  of  Mexico  in  these  enactments 
issued  unmistakable  invitations  to  all  the  world  to  come  and 
invest  its  money,  its  brains  and  its  labor  hi  this  industry,  to 
endeavor  to  establish  it  upon  a  basis  of  mutual  advantage 
to  the  enterprises  and  to  the  government  of  Mexico,  to  ac- 
quire lands  for  that  purpose  by  private  treaty  and  not  by 
public  license  or  denouncements,  and  in  short,  to  pursue 
this  business  as  petroleum  men  have  been  accustomed  to 
pursue  it  hi  the  United  States. 

There  has  never  been  the  least  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of 
any  of  these  statutes — a  point  which  is  not  only  demonstrable 
by  an  examination  of  the  language  itself,  but  which  was 
decided  at  a  special  session  in  1905  of  the  Academy  of  Juris- 
prudence of  Mexico,  an  association  resembling  the  Ameri- 
can Bar  Association,  and  containing  all  the  leading  jurists 


THE   MEXICAN  OIL   SITUATION  57 

of  Mexico  among  its  members,  at  which  with  only  one  dis- 
senting vote  it  was  determined  that  under  the  laws  of  1884 
and  1892  petroleum  did  not  belong  to  the  Mexican  nation 
and  could  not  be  taken  by  the  Nation  from  private  owners 
without  full  compensation. 

In  reliance  upon  these  statutes  and  their  uncontradict- 
ed  interpretation,  petroleum  development  progressed.  A 
country  which  had  been  almost  a  trackless  jungle — the  con- 
quest of  which  cannot  be  appreciated  by  those  who  have 
not  seen  it — was  made  into  one  of  the  greatest  producers  of 
petroleum  in  the  world  today.  Enormous  pipeline  systems 
for  the  collection  of  petroleum  were  established.  Great 
storage  and  terminal  facilities  were  supplied.  Large  fleets 
of  tank  steamships  were  built.  The  sum  total  of  all  of 
these  investments  aggregates  several  hundred  millions  of 
dollars. 

During  the  presidency  of  Porfirio  Diaz  all  went  well;  and 
it  was  not  until  Carranza — the  apostle  of  liberty — became 
dictator  that  any  change  in  the  spirit  of  the  Mexican 
legislation  concerning  petroleum  became  manifest.  As 
soon,  however,  as  he  had  been  recognized  de  facto  by  the 
American  government  he  conveniently  forgot  his  previous 
pledges  to  respect  the  rights  and  properties  of  foreigners, 
and  set  himself  to  work,  together  with  Luis  Cabrera  (who 
may  fairly  be  called  the  "ame  damneV'  of  the  Carranza 
administration)  to  concoct  detailed  methods  of  accomplish- 
ing what  Mr.  Cabrera  had  declared  it  was  his  intention  to 
accomplish,  to  wit:  to  drive  Americans  out  of  Mexico  and 
take  over  their  property.  In  making  this  statement  I  am 
not  indulging  hi  generalities,  for  I  have  before  me  the 
sworn  testimony  as  to  this  declaration  given  by  a  gentleman 
who  was  present  at  a  dinner  in  Vera  Cruz  at  which  the 
declaration  was  made,  and  at  which  not  only  Cabrera  but 
Carranza  were  present. 

Pursuant  to  this  plan  Carranza  first  took  possession  of 
the  railroad  systems,  and  since  that  day  no  security  holder 
has  received  a  dollar  upon  his  securities,  and  all  net  reve- 
nues have  been  confiscated  by  the  Carranza  government. 
The  Wells  Fargo  Express  Company's  business  seemed 


58  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

thriving.  Hence  Mr.  Carranza  took  that  over.  He  then 
found  that  the  tramway  systems  of  the  metropolis  seemed 
to  be  productive  and  decided  that  they  should  be  added  to 
his  collection.  He  learned  that  two  of  the  leading  banks, 
one  controlled  by  English  and  one  by  French  interests,  had 
large  stores  of  gold  com  in  their  vaults,  and,  perhaps  to 
show  that  his  theories  of  liberty  were  not  limited  to  the 
acquisition  of  American  properties,  compelled  these  bankers 
to  make  what  he  was  pleased  to  term  a  "loan,"  and  by  force 
of  arms  removed  all  of  the  specie  which  he  was  able  to  dis- 
cover. He  also  took  over  the  English  owned  railroad  run- 
ning from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico.  As  long  as  it  earned  money 
he  kept  it.  Occasionally  he  turned  it  back  to  its  owners, 
resuming,  however,  its  possession  as  soon  as  its  finances 
showed  improvement. 

During  all  of  this  time  his  mind  had  been  working  upon 
the  petroleum  situation.  How  to  get  hold  of  these  proper- 
ties with  the  least  friction  and  the  greatest  effectiveness 
evidently  gave  him  and  the  wily  Mr.  Cabrera  some  concern. 
Fortunately  for  them,  as  they  considered  it,  the  World  War 
created  a  situation  which  made  it  somewhat  unlikely  that 
the  United  States  government  would  be  able  to  give  much 
attention  to  any  aggression  against  its  petroleum  compan- 
ies; and  finally,  with  the  aid  of  some  of  the  leading  German 
representatives  in  Mexico,  they  adopted  a  plan  to  amend  the 
constitution  so  as  to  purport  to  assert  that  the  Mexican 
nation,  and  not  the  petroleum  companies,  owned  these 
properties  and  that  the  nation  could  enforce  its  alleged 
rights  to  them  without  any  shadow  of  compensation  to  the 
men  who  had  bought,  paid  for  and  developed  them. 

As  compared  to  this  plan,  let  me  again  refer  to  the  solemn 
written  pledge  given  hi  October,  1915,  by  Carranza's  ac- 
credited representative,  Mr.  Arredondo,  to  the  United  States 
government,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  the  Carranza 
government 

conscious  of  its  international  obligations  and  of  its  capability  to 
comply  with  them,  has  afforded  guarantees  to  ....  for- 
eigners and  shall  continue  to  see  that  their  lives  and  property  are 
respected,  in  accordance  with  the  practices  established  by  civilized 
nations. 


THE   MEXICAN  OIL   SITUATION  59 

As  a  method  of  carrying  out  his  ideas  Mr.  Carranza  con- 
vened what  he  was  pleased  to  term  a  "  Constituent  Con- 
gress" for  the  purpose  of  amending  the  constitution.  This 
course,  in  harmony  with  the  greater  part  of  Carranza's 
proceedings,  was  wholly  unauthorized  by  the  provision  of 
the  then  existing  law;  for  the  Constitution  of  1857  contained 
perfectly  reasonable  provisions  for  its  own  amendment  "by 
the  congress  of  the  union  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  mem- 
bers present  and  approved  by  a  majority  of  the  state  legis- 
latures." 

Not  only  did  Carranza  (probably  because  of  his  incom- 
plete control  over  the  country)  adopt  this  extra  legal  method, 
but  with  commendable  frankness  he  decreed  publicly  that 
in  the  selection  of  delegates  to  this  Constituent  Congress 
only  such  persons  should  be  allowed  to  vote  as  were  mem- 
bers of  his  own  faction.  All  other  voters  were  disqualified. 
Moreover,  with  respect  to  certain  states,  such  as  Oaxaca, 
where  his  authority  was  not  recognized,  methods  even 
more  arbitrary  and  illegal  were  adopted  in  order  to  secure 
the  ostensible  nomination  of  delegates  who  would  be  sub- 
servient to  his  wishes. 

The  decisions  of  this  " Constituent  Congress"  as  to  petro- 
leum are  contained  in  the  well-known  Article  27  of  the 
new  constitution,  which  provides  that  "in  the  nation  is 
vested  direct  ownership  of  ....  petroleum  and  all 
hydro-carbons." 

Curiously  enough  the  language  of  the  constitution  does 
not  go  expressly  to  the  extent  to  which  Mr.  Carranza  in 
his  subsequent  decrees  sought  to  carry  it.  It  does  not  in 
so  many  words  declare  that  petroleum  under  private  lands 
belongs  to  the  nation,  and  in  Articles  14  and  126,  it  provides 
that  no  "laws"  (the  constitution  itself  being  stated  to  be  a 
law)  "  shall  be  given  retroactive  effect  to  the  prejudice  of 
any  person  whatsoever." 

Article  27  contained  a  number  of  other  provisions  of  great 
importance  to  the  petroleum  companies,  such  as  one 
prohibiting  corporations  from  acquiring,  holding  and 
administering  rural  properties,  except  in  such  area  as  the 
executive  might  fix  as  absolutely  necessary  for  their  estab- 


60  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

lishments.  There  is  also  a  provision  preventing  foreigners 
from  acquiring  direct  ownership  of  land  within  50  kilometers 
from  the  seacoast — which  includes  almost  all  of  the  present 
known  petroleum  territory. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  nothing  was  done 
for  a  year.  Then,  between  February  and  August,  1918,  a 
series  of  executive  decrees  were  issued  by  Carranza  purport- 
ing to  carry  the  constitution  into  effect.  In  all  these  de- 
crees he  disregarded  Articles  14  and  126  and  purported  to 
construe  the  constitution  as  retroactively  affecting  all  lands 
acquired  for  petroleum  purposes  by  foreigners  even  prior  to 
the  date  when  the  constitution  took  effect. 

As  illustrative  of  Carranza's  habitual  disregard  of  law, 
even  of  the  law  of  his  own  country,  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  these  decrees  were  issued  by  him  with  no  power  or  au- 
thority whatsoever  to  do  so.  He  had  been  granted  by  Congress 
a  limited  power  to  act  in  matters  involving  the  country's 
finances;  and  disregarding  this  limitation,  he  treated  the 
congressional  authority  as  a  blank  check  entitling  him  to 
make  decrees  which  would  completely  alter  the  system  of 
land  titles  which  had  long  been  in  force. 

The  essential  provision  common  to  all  of  these  decrees 
was  that  those  who  claimed  to  be  the  owners  of  petroleum 
lands  must  file  statements  of  the  lands  thus  claimed  by 
them  and  must  pay  rentals  and  royalties  to  the  government  as 
a  condition  of  being  allowed  to  continue  in  their  operation. 

Please  note  particularly  that  these  decrees  were  not  based 
in  any  sense  at  all  upon  the  theory  of  eminent  domain  with 
which  we  in  this  country  are  so  familiar,  for  in  every  civil- 
ized nation  the  taking  over  of  private  property  by  the 
government  for  its  own  necessities  can  only  be  done  if  just 
compensation  is  paid  to  the  owner  of  the  property  thus 
taken.  In  this  case  there  was  not  even  a  pretense  of  com- 
pensation, whether  just  or  otherwise.  The  situation  was 
precisely  the  same  as  though  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
should  come  to  a  man  who  for  seventeen  years  had  owned 
the  house  hi  which  he  lived,  and  which  he  originally  bought 
and  paid  for,  and  in  the  title  to  which  there  are  no  defects, 
and  say  to  him  "We  have  decided  to  take  over  the  owner- 


THE  MEXICAN   OIL   SITUATION  61 

ship  of  your  property.  If  you  desire  to  do  so,  you  may 
still  occupy  the  house,  but  only  upon  condition  that  you 
pay  the  government  such  rental  as  we  may  now  fix,  subject 
to  any  increase  hereafter  that  we  may  see  fit  to  make,  and 
that  you  comply  with  such  other  conditions  as  we  may 
impose." 

Please  do  not  for  a  moment  think  that  I  am  exaggerating 
in  giving  this  illustration;  for  the  course  which  the  Car- 
ranza  government  attempted  to  adopt  toward  the  owners  of 
these  petroleum  properties  was  identical  with  that  which 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  would  have  followed  hi  the 
case  supposed.  And  hi  my  opinion  it  is  because  of  the  utter 
inability  of  the  American  mind  to  conceive  such  arbitrary 
and  conscienceless  action  on  the  part  of  the  government  of 
a  nation  which  claims  to  be  civilized,  that  the  petroleum 
companies  have  found  such  great  difficulty  in  making  the 
justice  of  their  position  apparent  to  the  American  nation 
at  large.  You  will,  I  think,  search  in  vain  in  the  peace  time 
history  of  civilized  nations  for  any  parallel  to  the  wholesale 
plan  of  governmental  thievery  which  Carranza  attempted 
to  follow  out. 

If  anyone  of  you  had  owned  the  house  which  the  State  of 
Massachusetts  in  my  hypothetical  illustration  had  claimed, 
what  would  you  have  done? 

Exactly  what  we  did — fought. 

The  principal  petroleum  companies  of  the  United  States 
organized  themselves  into  an  association  whose  one  and 
only  purpose  wtis  and  still  is  to  contest  in  every  practical 
and  decent  way  the  confiscation  of  their  properties;  and  in 
making  that  fight  we  relied  and  are  still  relying  solely  upon 
two  weapons.  These  weapons  do  not  consist  of  machine 
guns  or  implements  of  war.  We  had  no  armed  force  either 
of  our  own  contriving  or  of  any  government  to  support  us. 
But  we  stood  and  are  standing  today  upon  the  propositions, 
first,  that  we  are  morally  right,  and  that  the  Ten  Command- 
ments still  possess  vigor  even  when  attempted  to  be  dis- 
regarded by  an  alleged  government,  and,  secondly,  that  the 
public  opinion  of  the  United  States,  if  our  citizens  once  but 
knew  the  real  facts,  would  never  permit  the  consummation 
of  such  a  shame. 


62  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

We  refused  to  comply  with  the  Carranza  decree.  We 
allowed  the  day  upon  which  Carranza  had  ordered  that  we 
must  file  our  declarations  or  lose  our  properties  to  pass, 
and  told  his  government  that  we  should  not  file  any  such 
documents.  This  attitude  was  something  which  he  had 
not  looked  for,  and  he  at  once  revealed  his  consciousness 
of  the  weakness  of  his  position  by  issuing  a  decree  at  the 
fifty-ninth  minute  of  the  eleventh  hour  postponing  the  tune 
within  which  we  were  required  to  obey  his  commands. 
Greatly  encouraged  by  this  demonstration  of  our  own 
strength  and  his  recognition  of  his  own  weakness,  we  again 
refused,  and  on  four  successive  occasions  refused  to  do  so, 
until  finally  becoming  somewhat  alarmed  at  the  prospect 
of  the  possibility  of  a  direct  conflict  with  the  United  States 
upon  this  question,  Carranza  announced  that  he  would 
turn  the  whole  matter  over  to  the  Mexican  Congress,  which 
should  adopt  the  "organic  law"  regarding  the  petroleum 
industry. 

No  such  law  had  ever  been  adopted  up  to  the  tune  of  the 
end  of  the  Carranza  regime. 

But  although  Carranza  was  unwilling  to  force  a  direct 
issue  upon  this  question,  we  soon  found  that  the  campaign 
had  taken  a  different  turn  and  that  he  was  seeking  to  ac- 
complish his  aims  by  indirect  action.  This  assumed  many 
different  forms. 

Tn  the  first  place,  many  regulations  of  an  harassing  nature 
hitherto  unknown  became  adopted  and  a  maze  of  red  tape 
was  established  in  respect  of  almost  every  necessary  activ- 
ity of  a  petroleum  developing  concern. 

In  the  next  place,  governmental  officers  allowed  the  filing 
of  claims  against  our  properties  by  others  who  claimed  to 
be  entitled  to  acquire  them  under  the  terms  of  the  Carranza 
decrees. 

In  the  third  place,  concessions  began  to  be  granted  to 
Carranza  favorites  permitting  drilling  upon  certain  lands 
which  hi  fact  are  comprised  within  the  titles  held  by  the 
petroleum  companies. 


THE  MEXICAN  OIL   SITUATION  63 

In  the  next  place,  provision  was  made  so  that  no  company 
was  allowed  to  drill  on  its  own  land  unless  it  had  a  drilling 
permit,  and  that  no  permit  would  be  granted  unless  in  the 
applications  therefor  the  petroleum  companies  agreed  to 
abide  by  the  terms  of  any  petroleum  law  that  might  be  en- 
acted in  the  future.  This  resulted  in  stopping  drilling  and 
was  one  of  the  most  serious  difficulties  with  which  we  had 
to  contend,  for  it  set  back  the  entire  plan  of  petroleum 
development  in  Mexico  for  over  six  months — a  loss  which 
we  have  never  since  been  able  to  make  up,  and  which  has 
been  directly  reflected  in  this  country  in  the  great  damage 
to  our  mercantile  marine,  which  depended  upon  this  sup- 
ply of  oil  for  its  fuel,  to  many  great  manufacturing  establish- 
ments, likewise  thus  dependent,  and  to  the  users  of  gaso- 
line in  automobiles  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  United  States. 

Lastly,  and  this  was  the  most  serious  of  all  the  steps  which 
he  took,  he  sent  his  armed  forces  into  the  oil  regions.  Up 
to  that  tune  these  properties  had  been  in  the  control  of 
Pelaez,  himself  a  petroleum  land  owner  and  supported  by 
many  other  Mexicans  in  the  same  position  who  had  risen 
in  revolt  against  the  confiscatory  plan  of  which  I  have 
spoken.  During  the  whole  period  of  his  occupation  of  this 
territory  perfect  order  had  prevailed.  Our  properties  had 
not  been  looted,  our  men  had  not  been  injured  or  even 
insulted.  From  the  moment,  however,  that  the  Carranza 
forces  entered  upon  the  scene  a  practical  reign  of  terror  was 
inaugurated.  Attacks  upon  messengers  carrying  money 
with  which  to  pay  workmen  in  outlying  districts  became 
every  day  matters.  Many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
were  stolen.  A  continuous  line  of  insults  and  assaults  were 
committed  upon  our  men  and — worst  of  all — the  natural 
ferocity  and  lawlessness  of  these  people  resulted  in  a  long 
chain  of  murders  of  our  employees.  On  one  occasion  Car- 
ranza soldiers  entered  a  camp  where  four  Americans  were 
at  work  and,  although  they  made  no  resistance,  yet  they 
were  lined  up  and  shot  in  cold  blood.  On  another  occasion 
a  launch  bearing  payroll  money  was  shot  at  from  ambush 
and  a  man  was  killed,  others  being  wounded.  On  another 


64  FREDERIC  R.   KELLOGG 

occasion  five  men  were  killed  under  similar  circumstances. 
In  all,  twenty  of  our  employees  were  thus  murdered  and 
not  a  single  Carranzista  was  ever  brought  to  justice  for  any 
of  these  murders.  So  far  as  my  information  is  concerned, 
despite  reports  to  the  contrary,  no  arrests  were  even  made 
in  respect  of  any  of  these  atrocities.  But,  although  our 
employees  have  never  been  allowed  to  carry  guns  or  to  adopt 
any  means  of  defending  themselves,  they  were  not  men  who 
allowed  themselves  to  be  driven  from  their  work  even  with 
death  staring  them  in  the  face.  They  held  on — through  the 
war  period  when  every  drop  of  the  Mexican  oil  was  most 
urgently  needed — through  the  following  so-called  peace 
period,  which  for  them  was  worse  than  that  of  the  war — 
up  to  the  day  when  Carranza  with  his  schemes  of  dictatorial 
power  and  arbitrary  spoliation  set  at  naught,  himself  experi- 
enced the  death  to  which  his  policies  had  comdemned  so 
many  American  citizens. 

The  campaigns  conducted  against  us  in  Mexico  were 
paralleled  by  other  campaigns  in  this  country.  Carranzista 
propagandists,  acting  under  direction  from  Mexico,  sup- 
plied with  funds  from  the  Carranza  treasury,  formed  in  this 
country  organizations  bearing  various  camouflaged  titles, 
and  succeeded  in  persuading  certain  American  citizens  to 
join  with  them.  Some  of  those  people  are  in  this  room 
tonight.  I  am  not  contesting  the  good  faith  with  which 
these  gentlemen  acted,  but  I  have  no  hesitation  in  charac- 
terizing their  mentality  as — to  say  the  least — somewhat 
peculiar.  Two  particular  elements  were  much  in  evi- 
dence. The  first  one  was  a  singular  credulity  with  regard 
to  every  statement  made  by  any  properly  authenticated 
Carranzista  against  the  probity  and  honor  of  any  American; 
and  the  second  was  complete  incredulity  as  to  the  possibility 
of  the  truth  being  told  by  any  American — especially  if  he 
were  engaged  in  the  petroleum  industry.  This  Carran- 
zisto-American  combination  commenced  and  carried  on  a 
systematic  campaign  for  the  purpose  of  poisoning  the  mind 
of  the  American  public  against  the  oil  companies  and  hi 
favor  of  the  Carranza  administration  and  of  its  spoliatory 


THE   MEXICAN  OIL   SITUATION  65 

attempts.  Instances  of  misrepresentation  regarding  these 
various  points  appeared  almost  daily  in  our  press.  For 
instance,  if  a  paymaster  was  robbed  one  was  quite  sure  to 
see  in  a  few  days  a  suggestion  that  he  had  connived  at  his 
own  robbery.  If  one  of  our  employees  was  murdered  there 
never  was  lacking  a  dispatch  from  Mexico  to  the  effect  that 
he  had  been  drinking  and  had  unwarrantably  attacked  a 
faithful  Carranzista  soldier.  So  far  as  the  effort  to  confis- 
cate our  properties  was  concerned,  abundant  argument  was 
forthcoming  to  show  that  we  who  desired  to  keep  that 
which  was  ours  were  in  the  wrong  and  that  the  Carranzista 
government  was  actuated  by  the  highest  principles  and  with 
ample  justification  in  its  effort  to  enrich  itself  at  our  expense. 

Constant  repetition  was  made  of  the  old  assertion  that 
we  were  "concessionaires"  when,  as  I  have  already  shown, 
no  American  ever  held  a  concession. 

We  were  accused  of  being  tax-dodgers,  although  no  ques- 
tion of  taxation  was  ever  at  any  tune  involved  and  the  only 
moneys  which  we  refused  to  pay  were  the  "rentals  and 
royalties" — payment  of  which  would  have  admitted  that 
our  own  properties  no  longer  belonged  to  us  but  to  the 
government. 

We  were  said  to  have  fomented  rebellion  against  the 
Carranza  administration,  when  the  fact  was  that  the  only 
rebellion  hi  the  oil  regions  was  the  Pelaez  rebellion  which 
was  originated  and  continued  by  the  Mexican  land  owners 
who  themselves  were  affected  by  the  spoliatory  Carranza 
decrees. 

The  argument  was  solemnly  made — and  has  been  repeated 
by  John  Lind,  former  governor  of  the  State  of  Minnesota, 
in  his  sworn  testimony  before  the  Fall  Committee  within  the 
last  two  weeks,  that  the  law  of  1884  was  adopted  as  the 
result  of  a  corrupt  intrigue  conducted  by  oil  men  with 
President  Diaz.  In  this  connection  I  cannot  refrain  from 
specifically  quoting  what  Mr.  Lind  said  under  oath  at 
this  hearing.  I  wish  to  read  you  his  exact  language : 

The  state  in  Mexico  owned  the  oil  until  some  time  during  Diaz's 
administration,  when  Lord  Cowdray  discovered  oil.  Then  they 
secured  an  act  of  the  Mexican  Congress  relinquishing  the  State 


66  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

claim  to  the  oil  and  real  property.  Of  course,  Lord  Cowdray  and 
his  organization  in  Mexico,  under  Diaz,  were  in  position  to  virtu- 
ally dictate,  and  they  did  dictate  to  the  Mexican  government 
what  they  wanted,  and  they  got  what  they  wanted. 

Senator  Fall  gave  me  the  privilege  of  appearing  before 
the  committee  to  answer  these  statements  of  Mr.  Lind's. 
This  task  was  not  a  difficult  one  for  the  following  reasons: 
first,  that  Lord  Cowdray  was  not  the  discoverer  of  oil  in 
Mexico,  as  Messrs.  Doheny  and  Canfield  were  the  pioneers 
and  Lord  Cowdray  never  entered  the  oil  business  until 
three  years  later;  second,  Lord  Cowdray  did  not  dictate  the 
oil  law  of  1884  because  it  was  dictated  nineteen  years  before 
he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  oil  business;  third,  Lord  Cow- 
dray did  not  intrigue  with  President  Diaz  with  reference  to 
the  passage  of  this  law  because  Gonzales  and  not  Diaz  was 
president  when  this  law  was  enacted ;  fourth,  no  oil  operator 
dictated  or  intrigued  for  the  adoption  of  this  law  because 
the  oil  industry  did  not  commence  in  Mexico  until  sixteen 
years  after  the  date  when  the  law  of  1884  went  into  force. 

Another  accusation  of  the  same  class  was  that  we  were 
refusing  to  obey  the  laws  of  Mexico.  There  is  not  a  word 
of  truth  hi  this  accusation  except  insofar  as  we  refused  to 
obey  the  so-called  law  (which  had  no  legal  validity)  under 
which  we  were  menaced  with  the  loss  of  our  properties. 

Another  common  argument  used  by  these  dextrous  propa- 
gandists was  that  before  the  law  of  1884  the  Mexican  nation 
owned  the  petroleum,  and  that  in  1917  the  nation  simply 
resumed  that  which  she  had  temporarily  and  erroneously 
allowed  to  pass  out  of  her  control.  To  this  attack  there  are 
two  answers.  In  the  first  place,  even  if  this  claim  were 
justified  historically,  there  is  no  possible  theory  upon  which, 
after  Mexico  had  changed  any  previous  law  and  had  adopted 
the  law  of  1884  and  after  foreigners  in  reliance  upon  this  law 
had  invested  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  in  the  petroleum 
industry,  the  Mexican  government  could  turn  around,  ignore 
what  it  itself  had  done  and,  with  one  stroke  of  the  pen, 
destroy  the  rights  of  the  petroleum  operators  to  the  proper- 
ties which  they  had  acquired  and  developed  in  reliance  upon 
the  law  in  question  and  the  good  faith  of  the  Mexican 


THE  MEXICAN  OIL  SITUATION  67 

nation.  But  in  the  second  place,  there  is  no  basis  for  this 
claim  in  legal  history.  In  1559  Philip  II,  the  King  of  Spain, 
incorporated  certain  sub-soil  substances  into  the  "royal 
patrimony,"  thus  taking  them  away  from  their  private 
owners.  But  these  substances  were  simply  metalliferous 
substances — a  clear  distinction  being  drawn  between  metal- 
liferous minerals  and  non-metalliferous  minerals.  More- 
over, this  absolute  monarch,  more  enlightened  than  Car- 
ranza,  who  posed  as  the  president  of  an  ostensible  republic, 
expressly  provided  for  just  compensation  to  any  private 
owner  from  whom  rights  were  thus  acquired.  In  1783  other 
decrees  were  issued  by  Charles  III  which  were  somewhat 
broader  in  their  scope  and  contained  ambiguous  language. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  at  this  time,  as  well  as  at  the 
tune  of  Philip  II,  coal  and  petroleum,  the  principal  hydro- 
carbons found  in  the  sub-soil,  were  not  recognized  as 
being  of  great  importance.  Shortly  after  the  decree  of 
1783,  however,  the  importance  of  coal  was  perceived  and 
other  decrees  were  issued  in  1789  and  1792  providing  that, 
irrespective  of  any  language  which  had  been  used  in  previous 
laws  or  of  any  interpretation  which  had  been  given  to 
them,  coal,  since  it  was  neither  a  metal  nor  a  semi-metal, 
should  not  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the  royal  patri- 
mony. Of  course,  you  will  immediately  observe  that  al- 
though petroleum  was  not  then  under  discussion,  yet  that 
the  reason  given  for  the  exemption  of  coal  from  the  opera- 
tion of  the  decree  covers  precisely  the  situation  as  to 
petroleum. 

The  Republic  of  Mexico  took  over  the  rights  which  the 
crown  of  Spain  had  enjoyed.  In  the  eighteen-seventies  and 
the  early  eighteen-eighties  questions  arose  as  to  the  scope 
and  effect  of  these  Spanish  laws  and  as  to  whether  coal 
(the  petroleum  industry  not  then  having  commenced  in 
Mexico)  should  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the  nation  or 
not.  Litigation  took  place  upon  the  subject;  but  the  entire 
matter  was  settled  once  and  for  all  by  the  voluntary  act  of 
the  Mexican  nation  itself  which,  after  adopting  an  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution  providing  for  the  promulgation  of 
mining  laws  by  the  federal  government,  proceeded  to  adopt 


68  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

the  law  of  1884  which  expressly  provided,  as  already  shown, 
that  petroleum  belonged  to  the  owner  of  the  surface  and 
not  to  the  nation  at  large. 

Another  frequent  ground  of  attack  was  the  accusation 
that  the  petroleum  companies  had  no  right  to  complain  of 
any  treatment  which  the  Mexican  government  submitted 
them  to,  provided  Mexican  citizens  themselves  were  treated 
in  a  like  manner.  This  is  the  so-called  "  Carranza  doctrine  " 
for  which  he  hoped  to  obtain  the  approval  of  Latin 
America.  It  is  only  necessary  to  observe  that  it  is  and 
always  has  been  completely  contrary  to  the  universally 
accepted  principles  of  international  law,  as  will  appear  from 
the  following  quotations: 

Where  a  government  asserts  that  its  citizens  in  a  foreign  country 
have  not  been  duly  protected,  it  is  not  competent  for  the  govern- 
ment of  that  country  to  answer  that  it  has  not  protected  its 
own  citizens.  (Moore's  Digest  of  International  Law,  vol.  vi,  pp. 
803-804.) 

Each  country  is  bound  to  give  the  nationals  of  another  country 
.  .  .  .  the  same  redress  for  injury  which  it  gives  to  its  own 
citizens  and  neither  more  nor  less;  provided  the  protection  which 
the  country  gives  to  its  own  citizens  conforms  to  the  established  standard 

of  civilization If  any  country's  system  of  law  and 

administration  does  not  conform  to  that  standard,  although  the 
people  of  that  country  may  be  content  or  compelled  to  live  under 
it,  no  other  country  can  be  compelled  to  accept  it  as  furnishing  a 
satisfactory  measure  of  treatment  of  its  citizens.  (Secretary  Root's 
Address  to  Pan-American  Conference.) 

The  alien,  therefore,  is  not  bound  to  accept  the  treatment 
accorded  to  nationals  if  such  treatment  is  in  violation  of  the 
ordinary  principles  of  civilized  justice.  (Borchard,  Diplomatic 
Protection  of  Citizens  Abroad,  p.  107.) 

But  perhaps  the  favorite  ground  upon  which  the  oil  com- 
panies were  assailed  was  that  they  were  seeking  to  bring 
about  armed  intervention  by  the  United  States  of  America 
in  the  affairs  of  its  smaller  neighbor  to  the  South  for  the 
purpose  of  subserving  their  own  greed  and  financial  ambi- 
tions. On  analyzing  these  statements  it  will  always  be  found 
that  they  are  based  upon  our  efforts  to  educate  the  American 
people  as  to  the  wrongs  to  which  we  were  being  subjected 
in  Mexico.  It  was  easy  for  the  Carranzista  propagandists 


THE   MEXICAN   OIL   SITUATION  69 

and  their  American  allies  to  raise  a  cry  of  violent  and  un- 
justifiable behavior  and  conspiracy  against  those  of  us  who 
were  defending  ourselves  from  attacks;  but  they  were  never 
able  to  see  anything  wrong  in  the  attacks  themselves  which 
were  being  committed  against  us. 

By  a  parity  of  reasoning,  if  a  man  is  attacked  by  a  thug 
in  the  street,  and  if  he  ventures  to  defend  himself  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  resulting  damage  is  his  and  not  that  of 
the  highwayman.  Likewise,  if  a  man  while  walking  with 
his  wife  sees  her  attacked  by  a  human  brute,  he  should, 
according  to  the  complacent  doctrines  of  these  individuals, 
keep  his  hands  off  lest  he  be  guilty  of  the  wrongful  use  of 
force.  On  the  same  theory  the  Belgians  should  be  most 
seriously  condemned  for  having  had  the  hardihood  to  resist 
the  Germans,  who  simply  wished  to  occupy  their  country. 
And  there  would  seem,  likewise,  to  be  little  doubt  as  to  the 
terrible  responsibility  of  the  owners  and  crew  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  for  venturing  to  travel  in  waters  from  which  they 
had  been  already  solemnly  warned.  Unless  these  grossly 
distorted  views  of  right  and  wrong  have  some  foundation 
which  is  not  apparent  to  the  ordinary  sane  man,  the  petro- 
leum companies  believe  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
responsibility  for  the  present  petroleum  situation  in  Mexico 
rests  upon  the  Carranzista  faction  who  endeavored  to  steal 
their  properties  from  them,  and  not  upon  the  petroleum 
companies  who  have  done  their  best  to  prevent  the  con- 
summation of  this  thievery.  And  they  have  no  doubt  but 
that  when  the  simple  facts  are  given  the  wide  publicity  which 
it  is  our  desire  that  they  should  have,  the  American  public 
will  entirely  agree  with  us. 

The  petroleum  companies  neither  desire  nor  have  any 
reason  to  desire  armed  intervention  by  the  United  States 
in  the  affairs  of  Mexico  except  possibly  as  a  last  resort  after 
all  other  means  have  failed  and  when  not  only  the  petroleum 
industry  but  the  entire  principles  at  the  bottom  of  our  for- 
eign commerce  and  our  national  honor  as  well  are  at  stake. 
And,  furthermore,  they  not  only  do  not  desire  intervention 
—which  if  it  should  come  would  expose  their  properties  to 
enormous  hazards  and  themselves  to  great  pecuniary  loss — 


70  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

but  they  are  firmly  convinced  that  no  intervention  is  or  will 
be  necessary  provided  that  any  faction  in  Mexico  which 
seeks  or  may  seek  to  accomplish  such  an  injustice  shall  be 
told  by  the  United  States  of  America  in  the  kindly  but 
absolutely  firm  language  which  was  used  by  Secretary  Evarts 
in  1878,  "Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  but  no  farther." 

As  the  second  part  of  this  talk,  how  does  the  Mexican  oil 
situation  affect  the  United  States  at  large? 

In  many  ways. 

First  and  foremost,  because  of  the  moral  principle  in- 
volved. For  this  country  never  has  reached,  and  I  believe, 
never  will  reach  a  point  of  spiritual  degradation  such  as  to 
result  in  the  deliberate  approval  of  a  violation  even  by  an- 
other nation  of  any  one  of  the  ten  commandments. 

Second,  because  of  the  necessity  of  Mexican  oil  produced 
by  American  companies  to  the  industries  and  consumers  of 
America. 

Our  navy  is  largely  dependent  upon  fuel  oil  for  its  motive 
power.  Over  five  hundred  of  the  leading  industries  of  New 
England  have  substituted  fuel  oil  for  coal  beneath  their 
boilers.  Our  merchant  marine  now  uses  sixty  million  bar- 
rels of  fuel  oil  a  year,  and  before  long  will  need  over  one 
hundred  million  barrels.  There  are  today  nearly  eight 
million  internal  combustion  gasolene-consuming  engines  in 
the  United  States  and  before  the  end  of  this  year  their  num- 
ber will  probably  have  increased  to  nearly  ten  millions. 

The  internal  production  of  petroleum  in  this  country  is 
no  longer  adequate  for  the  needs  of  our  consumption,  de- 
spite the  enormous  prices  which  it  is  bringing.  During  the 
current  year  the  sum  total  of  these  needs  will  require  the 
importation  into  this  country  of  approximately  eighty 
million  barrels  of  Mexican  oil  if  it  can  be  produced. 

Should  the  operations  of  our  producing  companies  be 
further  hindered  and  delayed  or  should  they  be  compelled 
to  cease  entirely,  through  aggressions  committed  against 
them,  millions  of  American  consumers  will  be  directly  and 
indirectly  affected,  not  merely  so  far  as  any  question  of  price 
is  concerned,  but  with  reference  to  their  ability  to  obtain 
petroleum  and  petroleum  products  at  all. 


THE   MEXICAN   OIL   SITUATION  71 

Lastly,  the  matter  affects  this  country  in  its  entirety 
because,  as  I  have  suggested  at  the  beginning  of  this  talk, 
the  principles  upon  which  the  Mexican  oil  conflict  must  be 
decided  lie  at  the  basis  of  our  entire  future  foreign  commerce. 
It  is  beyond  question  that  foreign  commerce  is  today  an 
essential  to  the  industrial  well-being  of  any  nation.     No 
country  in  the  present  stage  of  the  world's  history  can  live 
a  hermit  existence  and  still  prosper;  and  this  principle  is 
as  true  of  our  own  great  land,  despite  its  enormous  markets 
and  resources,  as  of  any  other  country.     But  if  we  are  to 
have  a  foreign  commerce  our  citizens  must  be  willing  to 
devote  their  lives  and  their  capital  to  its  development;  and 
this  will  no  longer  be  true  if  it  becomes  known  that  the 
United  States  of  America  has  adopted  the  policy  of  abandon- 
ing those  of  its  children  who  are  endeavoring  to  promote  its 
foreign  trade  and  of  allowing  them  to  be  subjected,  without 
protection,  to  any  attacks  and  assaults  which  governments 
such  as  the  Carranza  government  may  desire  to  commit 
upon  them.     Men  will  not  risk  their  health,  their  fortunes 
and  their  lives  in  discovering  and  developing  the  natural 
resources  found  within  the  borders  of  foreign  lands  and  which 
are  so  necessary  to  our  own  national  development  if  they 
know  that  when  success  has  been  achieved  its  fruits  may  be 
snatched  from  their  hands  by  those  who,  themselves  lack- 
ing in  courage,  initiative  and  ability,  nevertheless  always 
stand  ready  to  fatten  upon  the  achievements  of  others. 

Our  individual  citizens  cannot  stand  alone  against  the 
organized  power  6f  foreign  lands.  They  are  entitled  to  the 
support  and  the  help  of  our  own  government  in  their  legiti- 
mate enterprises  lawfully  conducted.  With  that  support 
they  will  hold  then*  own  against  the  citizens  of  any  other 
nation  in  this  world.  But  they  cannot  do  this  by  them- 
selves. They  must  be  protected,  where  they  are  entitled  to 
protection.  And  such  a  policy  on  the  part  of  this  govern- 
ment is  simply  one  of  respect  for  its  citizens  and  for  itself  as 
well.  It  involves  no  bullying  of  small  nations,  for  there 
is  no  law  of  man  or  of  God  that  suspends  the  operation  of 
the  eighth  commandment  merely  because  of  the  small  size 
of  the  human  being  or  an  international  being  who  may  seek 


72  FREDERIC   R.   KELLOGG 

to  transgress  it.  It  does  not  mean  any  "big  stick"  or  "chip 
on  the  shoulder"  policy,  but  on  the  other  hand  a  policy 
which  is  willing  to  give  a  square  deal  to  all  square  men  and 
insists  upon  a  square  deal  for  ourselves  in  return.  It  is 
not  a  policy  of  intervention,  for  intervention  is  promoted 
not  by  the  man  who  believes  in  square  dealing,  but  by  the 
man  who  advocates  the  approval  of  crooked  dealing  at  the 
expense  of  our  citizens  by  governments  or  nationals  of  other 
nations.  It  is  not  a  policy  of  war,  but  is  a  policy  of  peace. 

Without  such  a  policy  our  foreign  commerce  cannot  be 
prosperously  continued.  But  with  such  a  policy  once 
established  and  understood  by  the  rest  of  the  world  our 
men,  our  money,  our  ability  and  our  energy  will  penetrate 
into  all  parts  of  the  world  where  commercial  success  is  to 
be  achieved  and  where  stores  of  natural  resources  are  to  be 
found.  Our  ships  will  without  aggression  sail  the  seven 
seas;  the  lives  and  enterprises  of  Americans  will  be  respected; 
and  our  flag,  instead  of  being  considered  as  a  rag  which 
may  be  safely  dragged  in  the  dust  and  defiled,  will  be  uni- 
versally recognized  among  all  civilized  men  as  the  emblem 
of  a  kindly  and  long  suffering — but  always  mighty  and  majes- 
tic nation — AMERICA. 


THE  RAILROAD  SITUATION  IN  MEXICO 

By  A .  W.  Donly,  formerly  Trade  Commissioner  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada  in  Mexico 

Except  in  the  minds  of  the  rainbow  chasing  visionary  and 
the  half-baked  pacifist,  it  is  generally  accepted  that  the  flag 
must  either  go  ahead  of  commerce  or  follow  so  closel  in 
its  wake  that  the  two  shall  not  be  separated  by  any  great 
distance.  It  is  equally  true  that,  if  commercial  develop- 
ment is  to  prosper,  adequate  means  of  transportation  must 
be  provided.  The  fact  that  any  certain  district  or  country 
may  be  fertile  in  soil,  or  possessed  of  other  great  natural 
wealth,  is  not  sufficient.  Until  transportation  is  provided, 
this  potential  wealth  must  remain  practically  unproductive 
and  of  little  worth. 

The  truth  of  the  foregoing  statements  has  never  been 
better  illustrated  than  in  the  case  of  Mexico.  A  country 
of  great  fertility  and  of  vast  natural  resources,  her  lack  of 
interior  and  exterior  means  of  communication  had  kept 
her,  previous  to  1876,  in  a  most  primitive  state,  so  far  as 
commercial  development  and  prosperity  are  concerned.  Up 
to  that  tune,  one  single  line  of  railway,  264  miles  in  length, 
connected  the  p,ort  of  Vera  Cruz  with  the  capital  city  and 
this  was  the  then  sum  total  of  railroad  development.  In 
1911,  when  Porfirio  Diaz  retired  from  office,  the  total  num- 
ber of  miles  was  nearly  seventeen  thousand. 

Mexico,  being  a  land  without  adequate  inland  waterways, 
must  depend  for  her  internal  transportation  in  bulk  almost 
exclusively  upon  her  railroads.  These  have  been  of  com- 
paratively recent  origin,  the  first  line  to  operate  in  the 
republic  having  been  inaugurated  in  1873.  This  road,  fi- 
nanced and  constructed  by  British  enterprise,  is  known  as 
the  Mexican  Railway.  It  connects  the  capital  of  the  coun- 
try with  its  most  important  seaport,  Vera  Cruz. 

73 


74  A.   W.    DONLY 

Various  concessions  were  granted  for  the  construction  of 
this  line;  the  first  one  as  early  as  1853,  but  no  serious  effort 
was  ever  made  to  construct  the  line  until  1856;  even  then  the 
constant  disturbances  in  Mexico  so  delayed  the  work  that 
for  eleven  years  little  was  accomplished.  With  the  over- 
throw of  Maximilian  in  1867,  the  problem  was  formally 
taken  in  hand,  and  by  the  law  of  November  27,  1867,  the 
road  was  granted  an  annual  subsidy  of  560,000  pesos,  equiv- 
alent at  that  time  to  so  many  dollars,  to  run  for  twenty-five 
years.  The  following  year  the  clause  giving  the  Mexican 
Railway  the  sole  right  to  construct  a  line  between  Mexico 
City  and  Vera  Cruz  was  cancelled,  but  the  government 
pledged  itself  to  subsidize  no  other  line  between  these  two 
points  for  a  period  of  sixty-five  years.  It  may  be  noted 
that  this  concession  was  granted  ten  years  prior  to  the  presi- 
dency of  Porfirio  Diaz,  who  is  frequently  accused  of  being 
the  author  of  the  practice  in  Mexico  of  granting  concessions 
to  foreigners.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  under  the  imperial 
government  in  1864  that  the  Mexican  Railway  Company 
Limited  was  incorporated  in  London,  the  company's  con- 
cession being  confirmed  after  Maximilian's  overthrow  by 
the  government  of  Benito  Juarez,  as  has  been  stated. 
Under  the  final  form  of  the  concession,  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment secured  for  itself  the  right  to  demand  a  revision  of 
freight  and  passenger  tariffs  every  two  years,  and  to  be 
represented  on  the  board  of  directors. 

The  main  line  of  the  Mexican  Railway  is  but  264  miles 
long;  its  branches  aggregate  57  miles.  The  construction  of 
the  road  was  exceptionally  difficult,  owing  to  the  steep 
grades  and  the  nature  of  the  ground  encountered,  there 
being  a  climb  of  over  8000  feet  in  the  first  160  miles.  This 
alone  would  have  rendered  the  road  costly,  but  in  addition 
to  this  source  of  expenditure  the  Mexican  government 
insisted  upon  the  clause  in  the  concession  demanding  that 
the  construction  of  the  line  be  carried  on  simultaneously 
from  both  ends.  This  involved  an  immense  outlay  of 
energy  and  money  in  hauling  rails  and  other  material  from 
the  sea-coast  up  to  the  high  table-land  in  carts  and  enor- 
mously increased  the  cost  of  the  undertaking.  The  object 


THE   EAILROAD   SITUATION   IN  MEXICO  75 

of  this  action  on  the  Mexican  Government's  part  is  not 
quite  clear,  the  explanation  generally  offered  being  that 
experience  in  other  Latin  American  Countries  showed  that 
concessionaires  frequently  became  discouraged  and  aban- 
doned their  work  unfinished,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so  with- 
out too  great  a  loss,  but  that  having  hauled  their  material 
to  an  inland  point,  it  would  be  hopelessly  lost  should  the 
road  not  be  finished.  At  all  events  the  road  was  built  under 
these  conditions  and  the  capitalization  is  correspondingly 
high,  being  as  follows : 

Pounds  sterling 

Ordinary  share  capital  stock 2,254,720 

First  preferred  share  capital  stock 2,554,100 

Second  preferred  share  capital  stock 1,011,960 

Perpetual  debenture  stock 2,000,000 


Total 7,820,780 

The  venture  was  profitable  only  in  a  moderate  degree,  the 
exceedingly  steep  grades  involving  heavy  operating  charges 
and  what  with  this  and  the  large  capitalization,  it  was  long 
before  any  dividends  were  declared.  In  1902,  only  the 
first  preferred  shares  paid  a  dividend,  and  then  only  at  the 
rate  of  about  2.5  per  cent  per  annum.  In  1907  the  first 
preferred  paid  8  per  cent  and  the  second  preferred  about 
5  per  cent;  the  ordinary  shares  paid  nothing.  Until  1914 
the  Mexican  Railway  suffered  comparatively  little  through 
the  disturbed  conditions  prevailing  in  Mexico  since  1910, 
but  beginning  with  the  American  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz 
in  1914,  during  which  a  portion  of  the  track  was  torn  up, 
and  from  that  time  until  1919,  the  road  has  suffered  enor- 
mously. Since  November,  1914,  it  has  been  the  scene  of 
constant  battles  and  assaults  upon  trains,  with  the  result 
that  a  very  large  part  of  its  rolling  stock  and  most  of  its 
buildings  were  destroyed.  The  Carranza  government  took 
over  the  property  and  has  been  operating  it  for  its  own 
profit.  It  managed  to  keep  the  line  open  by  constructing 
numerous  block-houses  along  the  right-of-way  and  by  send- 
ing heavy  military  escorts  on  all  of  the  trains.  This  dis- 
couraged the  rebel  raiding-parties  and  a  fairly  regular  ser- 
vice was  maintained  throughout  1919,  though  the  traffic  was 


76  A.   W.    DONLY 

far  below  normal.  It  was  stated  by  persons  claiming  to 
know  that  of  the  eighty  odd  locomotives  included  in  the 
company's  equipment  in  1914,  only  eight  or  ten  were  in 
service  in  1919.  The  yards  at  Apizaco  and  Orizaba  are 
filled  with  wrecked  cars,  and  almost  every  one  of  the 
smaller  station  buildings  along  the  line  is  damaged  beyond 
repair,  but  the  roadbed  itself  has  escaped  with  compara- 
tively little  damage,  the  tunnels  and  more  important  bridges 
being  intact. 

The  desirability  of  rail  connection  with  the  United  States 
was  recognized  at  the  tune  the  Mexican  Railway  was  com- 
pleted, but  President  Lerdo  de  Tejada,  at  that  tune  the 
Mexican  executive,  did  not  favor  the  project,  regarding  it  as 
a  strategic  menace  to  the  safety  of  his  country.  He  did, 
however,  grant  charters  for  lines  to  the  interior  of  the  re- 
public from  its  capital,  without  extending  to  the  frontier. 

Under  his  successor,  Porfirio  Diaz,  a  different  policy  was 
adopted  and  railroad  building  was  encouraged,  particular 
attention  being  given  to  the  construction  of  lines  covering 
the  northern  and  central  plateaus,  at  that  time  the  best 
developed  and  most  productive  portions  of  Mexico. 

As  a  result  of  this  policy  it  was  not  long  before  the  region 
in  question  was  traversed  by  extensive  systems  of  rail- 
roads which  added  incalculably  to  its  commercial  prosperity. 
The  principal  lines,  three  in  number,  were  built  in  the 
eighties.  They  were:  The  Mexican  Central  Railway,  con- 
necting Mexico  City  with  El  Paso,  Texas,  as  its  mam  trunk, 
from  which  branches  ran  from  Irapusto  through  Guada- 
lajara to  Manzanillo  on  the  Pacific,  from  Aguascalientes 
via  San  Luis  Potosi  to  Tampico  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
another  from  Torreon  to  the  same  port  via  Monterrey;  the 
Mexican  International  Railroad,  running  from  the  City  of 
Durango  to  Eagle  Pass  via  Torreon;  and  the  old  Mexican 
National  Railroad,  the  shortest  route  from  Mexico  City  to 
the  United  States  border,  via  San  Luis  Potosi,  Saltillo  and 
Monterey  to  Laredo. 

According  to  the  franchises  or  " concessions"  under  which 
these  roads  were  built,  they  all  received  government  sub- 
sidies at  an  average  rate  of  7000  pesos  a  kilometer  or  11,200 


THE  EAILROAD   SITUATION   IN  MEXICO  77 

pesos  a  mile.  At  the  time  the  subsidy  was  granted,  this 
represented  an  equal  number  of  American  dollars;  it  is  to 
be  noted,  however,  that  the  subsidy  was  not  paid  in  a  lump 
sum,  but  spread  over  a  long  term  and  that  the  fall  in  the 
price  of  silver,  which  came  in  the  late  eighties,  reduced  the 
value  of  the  government  help  by  one  half.  According  to 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  E.  N.  Brown,  at  one  time  president  of 
the  National  Railways  of  Mexico,  before  the  Senate  Investi- 
gating Committee  (Investigation  of  Mexican  Affairs,  Part 
I,  p.  1793),  the  subsidy  was  from  15  to  18  per  cent  of  the 
cost  of  construction  of  the  line.  The  concession  carried 
with  it : 

(a)  The  right  to  construct  the  railroad. 

(b)  The  right  to  build  a  telegraph  or  telephone  line. 

(c)  The  right  to  exploit  the  railroad  and  the  telegraph 
or  telephone  line  during  the  entire  period  of  the  franchise. 
This  period  might  not  exceed  ninety-nine  years. 

At  the  close  of  this  period  the  railroad,  with  its  •"  lands, 
stations,  piers,  warehouses,  etc.,"  in  good  condition,  be- 
came the  property  of  the  nation. 

There  were  numerous  other  requirements  exacted  by  the 
government,  such  as  the  free  carriage  of  mails,  half-rates 
for  all  government  employees  and  for  soldiers,  whether  on 
or  off  duty,  and  for  all  their  equipment,  horses  and  artillery. 
All  tariffs,  freight,  and  passenger,  must  be  revised  every 
three  years,  such  revision  to  receive  the  approval  of  the 
Department  of  Communications  and  Public  Works. 

The  concessionaires  on  their  part  had  the  following  privi- 
leges: Fifteen  years  exemption  from  federal  and  local  tax- 
ation except  the  stamp  tax;  for  five  years,  importation  free 
from  customs  duties  and  from  taxes,  of  fixed  material  for 
tracks,  rolling-stock  and  repair  parts,  material  for  telegraph 
lines,  turntables,  cranes,  water  tanks,  etc.;  and  protection 
against  competing  lines  for  a  period  of  not  more  than  ten 
years  within  a  zone  agreed  upon.  (Railroad  law  of  Mexico 
as  amended  to  April  29,  1899.) 


78  A.   W.   DONLY 

THE  TEHUANTEPEC  NATIONAL  RAILWAY 

The  Tehuantepec  National  Railway  crosses  the  Isthmus 
of  Tehuantepec;  which  is  situated  in  the  southern  part  of 
Mexico  in  the  States  of  Vera  Cruz  and  Oaxaca.  The  dis- 
tance from  ocean  to  ocean,  as  the  crow  flies,  is  125  miles, 
and  the  idea  of  utilizing  it  in  one  way  or  another  had  long 
suggested  itself  to  the  authorities  of  Mexico,  even  in  colo- 
nial days.  The  project  of  a  canal  was  also  considered,  as 
was  a  combination  of  a  canal  and  land  transportation. 
One  well  known  American  engineer  even  advocated  a  ship- 
railroad,  for  the  building  of  which  he  was  given  a  concession, 
though  the  work  was  never  undertaken. 

In  1878  a  concession  for  a  railroad  was  given  to  Mr. 
Learned  of  New  York,  but  this  was  forfeited  in  1882;  sev- 
eral others  obtained  the  concession,  but  all  failed  to  con- 
struct the  railroad  until  1892,  when  Messrs.  Hampson, 
Stanhope  and  Corthell  obtained  the  franchise  and  began  the 
work  which  was  completed  in  1894.  They  lacked,  however, 
port  facilities  at  the  two  tidewater  terminals,  Salina  Cruz 
on  the  Pacific  and  Coatzacoalcos,  as  the  port  on  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  was  then  called.  The  project  of  constructing 
these  works  was  beyond  the  means  of  any  private  firm; 
furthermore,  the  Mexican  government  was  determined  to 
exercise  full  control  over  a  route  so  important  strategically. 
It  therefore  took  over  the  railroad  and  entered  into  a  con- 
tract with  the  British  firm  of  S.  Pearson  &  Son  for  the  con- 
struction of  the  terminal  facilities  and  for  making  such 
improvements  to  the  railroad  as  were  necessary  to  enable 
it  to  carry  the  traffic  which  it  was  hoped  to  develop.  The 
government  further  entered  into  partnership  with  Pearson 
&  Son  for  the  operation  of  the  property,  the  agreement 
between  the  two  contracting  parties  being  signed  in  its 
final  form  in  May,  1904.  The  contract,  as  made  in  1902, 
had  a  life  of  fifty-one  years,  the  firm  of  Pearson  &  Son  being 
the  managers  of  the  property,  the  working  capital  of 
$7,000,000  being  furnished  in  equal  amounts  by  the  con- 
tracting parties.  The  following  disposition  was  to  be  made 
of  the  earnings :  (1)  Payment  of  operating  expenses,  main- 


THE  RAILROAD   SITUATION   IN   MEXICO  79 

tenance  of  track  and  a  reserve  fund  set  aside  for  repairs. 
(2)  Payment  of  interest  on  loans.  (3)  Payment  to  the 
two  partners  of  5  per  cent  on  the  capital  furnished  by  them. 
(4)  Refundment  of  losses  for  previous  years  which  had  been 
charged  to  capital.  (5)  Payment  of  interest  at  5  per  cent 
annually  for  capital  invested  in  Coatzacoalcos  port  works. 
(6)  Surplus  to  be  divided  between  the  partners  of  which  the 
government  was  to  receive  during  the  first  thirty-six  years, 
65  per  cent;  during  the  next  five  years,  68.5  per  cent;  during 
the  next  five  years,  72.5  per  cent ;  and  during  the  remaining 
years  76.5  per  cent;  the  balance  in  each  case  going  to 
Pearson  &  Son. 

The  route  presents  no  engineering  difficulties  of  note;  the 
highest  point  being  only  730  feet  above  sea-level.  The 
port  works  at  both  terminals  are  elaborate,  those  at  Coatza- 
coalcos, or  Puerto  Mexico  as  it  is  now  called,  consisting  of 
extensive  jetties  and  wharves,  while  at  Salina  Cruz  an  open 
roadstead  has  been  converted  into  an  artificial  port  capable 
of  accommodating  six  vessels  and  susceptible  of  being  en- 
larged to  double  that  capacity  at  a  small  outlay.  Both 
terminals  were  equipped  with  electric  cranes  and  other 
loading  devices,  which  at  the  time  of  their  installation  were 
the  most  modern  of  their  kind.  There  were  also  magnifi- 
cent warehouse  and  storage  facilities. 

The  line  as  rebuilt  was  inaugurated  in  1907,  the  Hawaiian 
American  Steamship  line  making  use  of  this  route  for  the 
transportation  of  the  sugar  it  carried  from  Hawaii  to  your 
Atlantic  ports,  the  trans-shipment  charges  at  the  Isthmus 
of  Tehuantepec  being  reasonable  and  the  service  excellent; 
products  from  California,  Oregon,  British  Columbia  and 
Alaska  were  also  routed  across  the  isthmus  in  preference  to 
being  sent  by  Panama,  there  being  a  saving  of  some  1200 
miles  by  the  former  route  for  cargoes  shipped  from  San 
Francisco  for  Altantic  ports. 

The  unusually  substantial  character  of  the  road-bed  has 
to  some  extent  protected  it  from  injury  at  the  hands  of  the 
fighting  factions  which  infested  the  territory  through  which 
the  Tehuantepec  National  Railway  runs;  but  the  rolling 
stock  has  shared  the  fate  of  that  of  other  lines,  a  great  por- 


80  A.   W.    DONLY 

tion  of  it  having  been  destroyed  by  fire  or  dynamite,  acci- 
dent or  wear.  Moreover,  the  Tehuantepec  line,  though 
managed  with  remarkable  ability,  did  not,  even  before  the 
revolution  began,  develop  the  traffic  that  had  been  hoped 
for,  the  Panama  Canal  proving  a  more  serious  competitor 
than  had  been  anticipated.  Nevertheless,  a  fair  business 
was  being  built  up,  and  had  anything  like  normal  conditions 
prevailed,  the  road  would  in  all  probability  have  developed 
into  a  paying  investment.  The  revolution  which  broke 
out  in  1910  did  not  at  first  cause  the  Tehuantepec  line  much 
loss,  but  from  1913  the  disorders,  which  prior  to  that  time 
had  been  confined  to  the  north  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico, 
spread  over  the  south  as  well,  and  from  that  time  on  there 
was  a  constantly  growing  shrinkage  of  Mexican  products 
to  be  shipped  across  the  isthmus  as  well  as  more  or  less 
destruction  of  the  railroad's  property. 

A  large  part  of  the  freight  carried  consisted  of  raw 
Hawaiian  sugar,  brought  to  Salina  Cruz  from  Honolulu 
by  the  Hawaiian  American  Line  steamers,  and  transferred 
by  rail  to  Puerto  Mexico,  whence  steamers  of  the  same  line 
took  it  to  the  refineries  on  your  eastern  seaboard.  When 
the  United  States  entered  the  European  war,  the  Hawaiian 
American  Line  boats  were  taken  over  by  the  American 
government  and  the  traffic  across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuante- 
pec was  still  further  reduced.  It  has  now  shrunk  to  insig- 
nificant proportions  with  little  prospect  in  sight  for  any 
improvement  in  the  situation.  Much  of  the  rolling  stock 
has  been  destroyed  or  diverted  to  use  upon  other  lines, 
and  the  port  works  at  both  terminals  are  suffering  from 
neglect,  the  revenue  of  the  late  Carranza  government  being 
swallowed  up  by  the  demands  of  his  military  establishment. 
The  present  outlook  for  the  future  of  the  Tehuantepec 
National  Line  is  anything  but  roseate. 

In  1903  Mr.  Jose  Y.  Limantour,  Minister  of  Finance  under 
President  Porfirio  Diaz,  began  work  on  a  program  having 
for  its  object  the  government  control  of  one  or  more  of  the 
principal  railroads  of  the  country.  The  first  property  in 
which  he  acquired  such  a  controlling  interest  was  the  Mexi- 
can National  Railroad,  and  some  years  later  he  carried  to 


THE   KAILROAD   SITUATION   IN   MEXICO  81 

a  successful  conclusion  a  merger,  by  which  he  took  into  the 
system  now  known  as  the  National  Railways  of  Mexico, 
the  line  already  mentioned,  the  Mexican  Central  Railway, 
the  Mexican  International  Railroad  and  two  short  standard- 
gauge  lines  in  the  southern  part  of  the  republic,  the  Vera 
Cruz  and  Pacific,  which  connects  Santo  Lucrecia  on  the 
Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec  with  the  cities  of  Vera  Cruz  and 
Cordoba,  and  the  Pan-American  which  joins  Sano  Geronomo 
on  the  Tehuantepec  National  Railway  with  the  frontier  of 
Guatemala.  In  addition,  the  merger  controlled  the  very 
extensive  narrow-gauge  Interoceanic  Railway  of  Mexico, 
which  extends  from  Vera  Cruz  well  into  the  State  of  More- 
los,  passing  through  Jalapa,  Puebla  and  Mexico  City,  and 
its  subsidiary  line,  the  Mexican  Southern  Railway,  which 
runs  between  Puebla  and  Oaxaca.  The  two  last  named 
properties,  though  operated  as  part  of  the  system  of  the 
National  Railways  of  Mexico,  do  not  belong  to  it,  and  in 
the  statements  which  follow  as  to  mileage,  equipment  and 
capitalization,  these  two  lines  are  not  included. 

As  stated  by  the  annual  report  of  the  National  Railways 
of  Mexico  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1914,  the 
company's  liabilities  at  that  time  were: 

Mexican  currency      U.  S.  currency 

Capital  stock 448,014,716 

Funded  debt 407,672,380 

Stocks  and  bonds  of  original  lines  in 

hands  of  public 3,833,495 

Assumed  obligations 2,226,912 

Interest  on  bonds  and  notes 7,879,250 

Unclaimed  dividends 25,878 

Notes  payable 67,364,824 


Total,  less  current  liabilities 937,017,455 

$468,508,727.50 

The  same  report  gives  the  total  mileage  of  the  system, 
exclusive  of  yards  and  sidings,  but  including  several  short 
leased  lines  of  an  aggregate  length  of  less  than  sixty  miles  as : 

Miles 

Standard  gage 6,468 

Narrow  gage 387 

6,885 


82  A.   W.   DONLY 

The  gathering  of  these  particular  data  presents  no  great 
difficulty,  even  in  time  of  revolution,  as  they  are  a  matter 
of  record  and  easily  accessible.  For  all  practical  purposes 
both  the  liabilities  and  the  mileage  for  1914  were  the  same 
as  they  were  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  merger  in 
1908.  On  the  other  hand,  correct  information  as  to  the 
physical  condition  of  the  road,  and  of  the  rolling  stock  on 
hand  is  by  no  means  so  easy  to  obtain,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  " Remarks"  taken  from  the  report  already  quoted: 

These  statements  (covering  rolling-stock)  are  inserted  this  year 
only  because  it  has  been  customary  to  publish  such  data  in  our 
annual  reports. 

Comparing  the  figures  with  the  equipment  on  hand  at  the  close 
of  the  last  fiscal  year,  they  indicate  that  during  the  year  under 
review  but  1734  freight  and  40  passenger  cars  and  no  engines 
were  destroyed.  As  stated  elsewhere  in  this  report,  many  districts 
or  divisions  were  out  of  our  hands  either  for  brief  periods  or  during 
the  entire  year  and  consequently  it  was  impossible  to  get  accurate 
data  as  to  the  destruction.  The  reports  were  kept  as  accurately 
as  official  data  was  received  for  them  from  division  officers,  but 
from  current  reports  of  casualities  received  by  us,  during  the  year, 
it  is  believed  that  the  above  list  is  not  complete. 

During  the  year  the  daily  reports  received  indicated  at  times 
the  destruction  of  complete  trains.  In  regard  to  locomotives 
the  report  does  not  show  any  as  destroyed  from  revolutionary 
causes,  but  undoubtedly  many  of  the  engines  which  were  dyna- 
mited, burned  or  otherwise  wrecked  during  the  year  were  reduced 
to  such  a  condition  that  they  should  be  called  destroyed.  In 
the  attack  on  Monterrey,  October  23  and  24,  1913,  17  engines 
were  burned  in  the  round  house  and  a  total  of  637  cars  were 
burned;  when  Monclava  was  attacked,  March  11,  1914,  9  engines 
and  281  of  our  cars  were  burned. 

The  superintendent  of  the  mechanical  department  closes  his 
annual  report  by  saying:  "Condition  of  engines  on  Northern 
Cardenas,  Monterrey,  Chihuahua,  Monclova,  Torreon  and  Dur- 
ango  Divisions  and  Tampico  Terminal  cannot  be  shown,  on  ac- 
count of  no  reports  having  been  received  due  to  present  situation." 

Mr.  E.  N.  Brown,  whose  testimony  has  been  referred  to, 
states  that  in  1913  the  "  National  Railways  and  the  subsidi- 
ary lines  had  some  22,000  freight  cars  in  service,  and  729 
locomotives."  In  the  Tenth  Annual  Report  of  the  National 
Railways  of  Mexico,  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1918,  there  is  given  in  review  the  following  information  as 
to  the  rolling-stock  on  hand  June  30,  1913,  as  compared 
with  that  on  hand  at  the  time  the  report  was  issued : 


THE   RAILEOAD   SITUATION   IN   MEXICO  83 

June,  ISIS          June,  1918  Decrease 

National  railways 16,661  10,538  6,123 

Freight  cars,  standard  gage 1,831  1,193  638 

Freight  cars,  narrow  gage 435  345  90 

Passenger  coaches,  standard  gage.  118  84  34 

Passenger  coaches,  narrow  gage...  620  362  258 

Locomotives,  serviceable 

Bearing  in  mind  the  dates,  it  will  be  noted  that  the  above 
inventory  applies  to  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1913, 
nearly  three  years  after  the  political  disturbances  in  Mexico 
began;  already  the  railroad  properties  had  suffered  consid- 
erably, but  far  worse  was  to  come. 

It  is  well  to  digress  here  for  a  moment  for  the  purpose  of 
discussing  briefly  a  certain  important  factor  in  the  railroad 
situation  in  Mexico,  to  wit,  its  personnel.  At  first  owing 
to  the  utter  unf  amiliarity  of  the  Mexicans  with  every  branch 
of  this  industry,  it  was  necessary  to  fill  all  positions  requir- 
ing mechanical  knowledge  and  skill,  or  a  familiarity  with 
railroading  and  its  allied  professions,  with  foreigners,  in 
this  case  almost  exclusively  Americans.  Practically  all  of 
the  locomotive  engineers,  conductors,  station  agents,  tele- 
graph operators,  boiler-makers  and  others  connected  with 
the  repair  shops  were  of  that  nationality,  as  well  as  a  large 
proportion  of  the  office  force. 

It  was  early  recognized  by  the  Mexican  government  that 
from  a  national  point  of  view  this  state  of  affairs  was  highly 
undesirable,  and  steps  were  taken  to  remedy  the  situation 
with  the  cooperation  of  the  railroads  themselves.  Schrols 
for  educating  apprentices  were  established  as  early  as  1890. 
Boys  desiring  to  learn  railroading  were  taken  at  fourteen 
or  fifteen  years  of  age,  under  a  four-year  contract,  beginning 
at  62^  cents  a  day  for  the  first  year,  with  a  gradual  increase 
in  wages  which  for  the  fourth  year  were  3|  pesos.  A  forfeit 
of  25  cents  a  day  was  held  back  and  this  was  paid  to  them 
on  completion  of  the  contract,  when  they  received  a  certifi- 
cate of  service  constituting  them  as  what  was  known  as 
journeymen  (jornaleros).  They  were  then  free  to  remain 
with  the  railroad  or  to  seek  work  elsewhere.  In  1912  there 
were  2000  such  apprentices  under  contract  to  the  National 
Railways,  and  from  the  time  the  system  had  been  put  in 


84  A.   W.   DONLT 

effect,  a  period  of  twenty-two  years,  it  was  estimated  that 
15,000  or  18,000  boys  had  received  training  under  it.  Be- 
tween 1907  and  1912,  fifteen  schools  of  a  more  advanced 
character  were  established  to  educate  men  in  the  operating 
service,  to  make  them  "proficient  on  train  rules,  air  signals, 
air  brakes  and  other  mechanical  appliances,"  and  they  had 
lectures  given  periodically  by  experts  in  these  lines,  prin- 
cipally Americans.  There  was  also  apparatus  installed  in 
these  schools  to  demonstrate  the  appliances.  (Mr.  E.  N. 
Brown's  testimony.) 

In  1912,  under  the  presidency  of  Madero,  a  sweeping 
change  of  personnel  was  decided  upon.  Possibly  the  un- 
friendly attitude  of  the  United  States  government  at  that 
time  influenced  the  decision,  for  threats  of  intervention  were 
constantly  in  the  air  and  under  the  circumstances,  the 
Mexican  government  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  not  wishing 
the  country's  means  of  transportation  to  remain  in  the 
hands  of  the  citizens  of  a  nation  with  which  hostilities 
appeared  highly  probable.  But,  while  no  valid  objection 
can  be  raised  as  to  the  propriety  of  making  the  change,  the 
method  employed  provided  a  great  deal  of  criticism,  not 
wholly  undeserved.  If  I  remember  rightly,  a  decree  was 
issued  making  compulsory  after  a  certain  date  the  use  of 
the  Spanish  language  in  all  business  connected  with  the 
operation  of  the  roads;  this  virtually  forced  the  resignation 
of  a  large  part  of  the  American  employees,  few  of  whom 
spoke  that  tongue  with  the  necessary  degree  of  fluency  and 
still  fewer  could  either  read  or  write  it.  It  was  an  ungra- 
cious return  for  the  years  of  service  they  had  rendered  and 
worked  great  hardships  upon  the  many  who  were  too  old 
to  begin  life  over  again  in  other  countries,  and  it  is  to  be 
regretted  that  the  Mexican  government,  in  exercising  what 
was  its  right,  could  not  have  shown  greater  consideration. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  the  immediate  results  of 
the  change  were  not  beneficial  to  the  railroads,  for  many 
men  were  moved  into  positions  of  responsibility  which  they 
were  unqualified  to  fill.  It  is  but  fair  to  the  Mexicans  to 
say  that  in  time  they  rose  to  the  occasion,  and  that  they 
have  since  developed  railroad  men  quite  equal  to  many  of 
those  whom  they  succeeded. 


THE  RAILROAD   SITUATION   IN  MEXICO  85 

The  political  disturbances  which  for  the  last  ten  years 
have  afflicted  Mexico,  have  profoundly  affected  most  of  her 
industries  and  none  more  so  than  that  of  railroading,  for 
from  the  beginning  of  the  fighting,  the  roads  were  used  for 
moving  troops;  indeed,  on  the  arid  plains  of  the  north, 
where  many  of  the  campaigns  were  waged,  they  furnish 
the  only  practical  method  of  transportation.  So  closely 
have  the  military  movements  in  Mexico  been  tied  to  the 
railroads  that  it  may  be  said  with  substantial  accuracy 
that  90  per  cent  of  the  fighting  there  has  taken  place  within 
ten  miles  of  the  nearest  line. 

At  first  the  railroads  suffered  chiefly  from  the  interrup- 
tion of  commercial  traffic  and  from  the  rough  usage  inci- 
dental to  armed  movements  the  world  over;  but  as  their 
strategic  importance  became  more  clearly  understood,  they 
came  to  be  regarded  in  many  cases  as  the  main  objectives; 
he  who  had  possession  making  every  effort  to  retain  it,  he 
who  did  not,  resorting  to  every  method  to  capture  or  dam- 
age his  enemies'  means  of  communication.  In  the  begin- 
ning these  methods  were  such  as  are  sanctioned  by  the  rules 
of  civilized  warfare;  the  attacks  were  directed  exclusively 
against  troop  trains  by  means  of  artillery  fire,  the  tearing 
up  of  rails  or  the  hemming  in  of  trains  by  the  destruction 
of  bridges  behind  and  in  front  of  them.  As  time  went  on, 
however,  and  preventive  measures  were  devised  against  the 
old  methods  of  attack,  new  ones  were  evolved,  and  just  as 
in  the  European  war  the  Germans  sank  all  merchantmen, 
enemy  or  neutral,  on  the  theory  that  they  were  or  might 
be  used  to  convey  supplies  to  the  Allies,  so  in  Mexico,  a 
faction  driven  to  bay  inflicted  all  possible  damage  upon  the 
railroad  with  the  intention  of  causing  its  opponents  the 
greatest  amount  of  harm.  As  a  result,  in  a  very  short 
time  the  operations  were  not  confined  to  attacks  on  military 
trains,  but  were  directed  at  every  moving  thing,  animate  or 
inanimate,  along  the  railroad,  and  soon  degenerated  into 
brigandage,  pure  and  simple,  only  too  often  accompanied 
by  acts  of  the  most  fiendish  cruelty  against  the  passengers, 
the  mutilation,  torture  and  murder  of  men,  and  the  kid- 
napping arid  violation  of  women.  On  more  than  one  occa- 


86  A.   W.   DONLY 

sion,  the  wounded  victims  of  an  assault  were  drenched  in 
oil  and  burned,  together  with  the  car  in  which  they  lay 
helpless. 

Destructive  as  was  the  rebel  activity  of  those  days,  it  was 
at  least  confined  to  a  small  part  of  Mexico,  there  being  little 
of  it  outside  of  the  states  of  Chihuahua  and  Morelos.  Fol- 
lowing Madero's  fall,  however,  the  disorders  spread  over 
the  entire  country,  much  of  the  destruction  became  purely 
wranton,  and  men  calling  themselves  soldiers  did  not  shrink 
from  perpetrating  outrages  usually  associated  with  crimi- 
nals of  the  lowest  order.  With  the  triumph  of  the  Carranza 
revolution  against  Huerta  in  1914,  matters  grew  still  worse 
for  immediately  after  ousting  their  common  enemy,  the 
two  victors,  Villa  and  Carranza,  quarreled  and  the  civil 
war  which  followed  exceeded  in  ferocity  anything  that 
Mexico  had  ever  known. 

Very  early  in  this  phase  of  the  fighting,  Carranza,  who 
regarded  himself  as  the  only  legally  constituted  authority 
in  Mexico,  seized  such  railroads  as  he  could  and  operated 
them  in  the  name  of  the  government,  as  provided  for  under 
the  laws  of  April  29,  1899,  Chapter  VIII,  Article  145,  pages 
10  and  11,  which  say: 

The  federal  authorities  are  entitled,  in  case  in  their  opinion 
the  interests  of  the  country  require  it,  to  make  requisitions  on 
the  railroads,  their  personnel  and  all  their  operating  material, 
and  to  use  them  as  they  may  consider  advisable.  In  this  case, 
the  nation  shall  indemnify  the  railroad  companies. 

If  no  agreement  is  reached  as  to  the  amount  of  the  indemnifi- 
cation, the  latter  shall  be  based  on  the  average  gross  earnings  in 
the  last  five  years,  plus  ten  percent,  all  expenses  being  borne  by 
the  company. 

In  the  event  of  war  or  of  extraordinary  circumstances,  the 
executive  may  take  measures  to  render  unserviceable  either  the 
whole  or  part  of  the  line,  also  the  bridges,  telegraph  lines  and 
signals  forming  part  of  the  road.  Whatever  may  have  been  de- 
stroyed shall  be  replaced  at  the  cost  of  the  nation,  as  soon  as  the 
nation's  interests  allow  of  it. 

Under  the  circumstances,  therefore,  the  seizure  of  the 
railroads  by  the  Carranza  government  has  been  the  best 
thing  that  could  have  happened  to  the  railroads  themselves, 
insofar  as  it  clearly  fixes  upon  the  nation  the  responsibility 


THE   RAILROAD   SITUATION   IN  MEXICO  87 

for  the  damages  sustained,  and  this  responsibility  becomes 
all  the  more  clearly  established  through  the  recognition  of 
Carranza  by  the  United  States  as  the  de  jure  president  of 
Mexico. 

In  the  absence  of  a  systematic  survey  the  monetary  equiv- 
alent of  the  damage  must  remain  a  matter  of  conjecture, 
though  such  a  conjecture  made  by  so  competent  an  author- 
ity as  Mr.  E.  N.  Brown  cannot  but  carry  weight. 

In  his  testimony,  repeatedly  quoted,  he  says:  " Making 
repairs  to  rolling  stock,  bridges,  stations,  and  other  de- 
stroyed property,  together  with  making  good  arrears  of 
repairs,  I  should  estimate  at  from  sixty-five  to  seventy 
million  dollars  United  States  money."  (Mr.  E.  N.  Brown, 
Investigation  of  Mexican  Affairs,  Part  II,  p.  1795.) 

To  this  sum  we  must  add  the  accrued  interest  upon  the 
bonds  and  notes  of  the  company,  all  of  which  has  remained 
unpaid  ever  since  Carranza  seized  the  property.  According 
to  the  balance  sheet  of  June  30,  1919,  appearing  in  the  elev- 
enth annual  report  of  the  National  Railways  of  Mexico,, 
these  are: 

Mexican  currency     U.  S.  equivalent 

Interest  on  bonds  and  notes 117,140,489 

Unclaimed  dividends  on  first  preferred 

shares 25,114 

Notes  payable,  extended  by  agreement .     67,324,263 


184,489,263      $92,244,933 

From  this  statement  it  will  be  noted  that  the  accrued 
interest  on  bonds  and  notes  have  increased  since  1914  from 
less  than  8,000,000  pesos  to  more  than  117,000,000,  or  by 
109,000,000  pesos,  $54,500,000  in  United  States  currency, 
about  $11,000,000  a  year. 

It  would  be  useless  to  try  to  state  the  amount  of  indem- 
nity to  which,  for  the  use  of  the  property  by  the  Mexican 
government,  the  railroad  company  will  be  entitled  under 
the  law  cited,  when  the  time  for  settlement  comes.  The 
wording  of  the  law  itself  is  somewhat  vague. 

If  no  agreement  is  reached  as  to  the  amount  of  the  indemnifi- 
cation, the  latter  shall  be  based  on  the  average  gross  earnings  in 
the  last  five  years,  plus  10  per  cent,  all  expenses  being  borne  by 
the  company. 


88  A.   W.   DONLY 

It  is  evident  from  this  provision  that  its  framers  had  in 
mind  the  seizure  of  the  country's  railroads  at  the  beginning, 
and  not  four  years  after  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  as  was 
the  case  when  Carranza  commandeered  the  roads  in  1914. 
Clearly,  the  five-year  period  immediately  preceding  the 
seizure  of  the  properties  is  not  a  correct  or  fair  index  to  their 
earning  capacity,  from  the  causes  already  sufficiently  de- 
scribed, so  that  in  the  final  casting  up  of  accounts  the  ques- 
tion of  equity  and  fair  dealing  will  play  as  important  a  r61e 
as  that  of  mere  bookkeeping.  How  adversely  the  revenues 
of  the  company  were  affected  by  the  Carranza  revolution 
may  be  judged  by  comparing  the  net  earnings  for  the 
year  ending  June  30,  1914,  with  those  of  the  previous  year. 
These  were : 

Mexican  currency 

For  1912-1913 21,101,900 

For  1913-1914 2,367,439 


18,734,461 

The  gross  earnings  for  the  same  two  periods  had  fallen 
from  57,370,282  pesos  to  34,273,341  pesos,  a  shrinkage  of 
40  per  cent. 

The  number  of  unknown  factors  involved  in  this  question 
make  its  further  discussion  unprofitable  for  the  present, 
though  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  will  afford  rich  pickings  for 
the  legal  profession  when  the  proper  time  comes. 

What  we  do  know  within  reasonable  limits  of  certainty 
is  the  arrears  of  interest  and  the  amount  needed  to  restore 
the  properties  to  good  physical  condition.  These  are  as 
follows : 

Mexican  currency 

Accrued  interest  on  bonds  and  notes  1919.  117,140,489 

Less  accrued  interest  on  same  1914 7,879,249    109,261,240 


Interest  for  the  fiscal  year  1919-1920,  approximate.. .      22,000.000 
Estimated  cost  of  repairs  at  rate  of  exchange  2  to  1 . .     130,000,000 


Total  pesos 261,261,240 

or  130,630,620  dollars  in  United  States  currency,  for  which 
amount  the  Republic  of  Mexico  is  unquestionably  liable. 


THE   RAILROAD   SITUATION   IN  MEXICO  89 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  estimate  does  not  include 
the  notes  payable  amounting  to  over  67,000,000  pesos  or 
$33,500,000,  as  this  item  appears  in  the  general  balance 
of  1914  and  is  therefore  not  chargeable  to  government 
operation. 

So  much  for  the  economic  and  physical  condition  of  the 
railroads  in  Mexico.  Before  closing  I  shall  refer  briefly  to 
their  moral  condition.  Under  the  Carranza  administra- 
tion, it  has  been  impossible  for  shippers  to  get  cars  unless 
graft  is  paid.  Everything  is  regulated  by  schedule.  I  have 
heard  it  stated  that  a  thousand  pesos  is  the  amount  neces- 
sary to  be  paid,  over  and  above  the  regular  freight  tariff, 
in  order  to  secure  from  the  "broker/  who  collects  and 
distributes  the  graft,  the  guarantee  of  a  car  from  the  bor- 
der to  Mexico  City. 

Since  the  year  1911  Mexico  has  been  indulging  in  an  orgy 
of  wild-oat-sowing  for  which  she  should  be  rebuked,  sternly 
if  necessary,  certainly  effectively.  The  injury  to  legitimate 
business  and  enterprise  of  all  kinds  has  been  in  direct  ratio 
to  the  deterioration  of  the  railway  service.  The  latest  re- 
deemers, who  are  now  making  their  bow  to  the  public, 
exude  the  same  kind  of  promises  to  which  we  have  so  long 
been  accustomed.  I  am  not  so  pessimistic  as  to  have  lost 
hope;  on  the  other  hand  I  am  not  surcharged  with  expecta- 
tions. A  burned  child  dreads  the  fire  and  I  am  just  re- 
turned from  a  sojourn  of  several  weeks  in  Missouri.  By 
their  acts  we  shall  know  them  and  judge  them  thereby. 
It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  in  this  connection,  that  the  pres- 
ent revolt  against  the  authority  of  Carranza  is  not  a  popular 
uprising  but  has  been  conducted  by  those  very  political 
militarists  who  were  instrumental  in  placing  him  in  power. 

In  any  case,  the  government  of  this  country  still  owes 
an  undischarged  duty  and  obligation  towards  many  of  its 
own  nationals  as  well  as  to  those  of  other  countries.  Our 
pacifist  orators  and  Bolshevist  agitators  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  the  bulk  of  the  railway  and  other  Mexican 
securities  are  not  held  by  the  frequently  maligned  "Barons 
of  Wall  Street,"  but  by  the  small  investors  in  this  country 
and  in  France,  Belgium  and  England.  These  were  pur- 


90  A.   W.   DONLY 

chased  in  good  faith,  all  too  frequently  based  upon  informa- 
tion emanating  from  official  or  semi-official  sources  in  Wash- 
ington and  it  is  now  the  duty  of  the  American  government 
to  insist  upon  such  a  reestablishment  of  order  and  economy 
hi  the  southern  country  as  will  insure  their  ultimate  re- 
demption with  all  accrued  interest. 

In  conclusion,  I  do  not  hold  the  submerged  masses  in 
Mexico  responsible  for  any  of  the  present  disaster  and 
chaos.  Even  that  element  in  the  country  which  is  most 
directly  responsible,  is  entitled  to  some  palliation  for  the 
gravity  of  its  crimes,  for  were  the  Mexicans  not  encouraged 
to  shed  as  much  blood  as  they  saw  fit  to  lead  them  from  the 
dark  shadow  of  dictatorship  into  the  full  light  of  a  glorious 
democracy?  And  the  saddest  commentary  of  all:  today, 
Mexico  is  a  bankrupt  nation.  With  an  abundance  of  poten- 
tial assets,  she  will  never  be  able  economically  to  rehabili- 
tate herself  without  outside  help.  The  direct  and  indirect 
loss  of  the  past  nine  years,  must  run  well  into  the  billions. 
With  the  capacity  for  production  existing  in  1911,  had  she 
not  gone  upon  the  rampage,  she  could  have  come  through 
the  years  of  the  Great  War  a  creditor  nation  to  the  extent 
of  as  many  billions  as  she  is  now  a  debtor  and  occupy  an 
enviable  position.  Instead  she  is  still  that  eternal  "  Mexi- 
can problem"  and  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  those  nations  out- 
side whose  doors  she  must  wait  as  a  mendicant,  if  she  is  to 
re-achieve  that  political  and  economic  status  which  she 
forfeited  in  the  fateful  years  of  1910-1911. 


LABOR  IN  MEXICO 

By  James  Lord,  Treasurer,  Pan  American  Federation  of 

Labor;  Member  of  Labor  Commission  to  Visit 

Mexico,  1918 

I  have  been  asked  to  say  a  few  words  at  this  conference 
regarding  the  labor  situation  in  Mexico.  I  will  try  to  give 
you  the  benefit  of  a  few  facts  as  they  occur  to  me  regarding 
my  experience  with  Mexican  and  other  labor  for  many 
years,  and  especially  in  connection  with  my  experience  the 
last  tune  I  was  in  Mexico  in  the  summer  of  1918,  when  I 
had  a  good  opportunity  to  study  at  close  range  the  new  labor 
movement  there  as  it  exists  now. 

Labor  in  Mexico  is  in  bad  shape.  Ages  of  industrial 
serfdom,  exploitation,  internal  fighting  and  revolution  have 
kept  the  people  fairly  demoralized  in  that  unhappy  coun- 
try. The  Mexicans,  strangely,  like  other  people  are  creat- 
ures of  environment,  and  when  in  any  locality  the  oppor- 
tunity occurs  through  better  environment  or  a  greater 
measure  of  real  liberty,  a  distinct  improvement  is  manifest, 
and  by  the  same  token  bad  economic  and  social  conditions 
find  their  reflex  there,  just  as  they  do  in  other  countries. 

The  present  labor  movement  in  Mexico  was  conceived  in 
the  throes  of  the  Tevolution  against  President  Porfirio  Diaz. 
Prior  to  that  tune  they  had  no  opportunity  of  openly  meet- 
ing in  any  way,  or  even  discussing  the  wrongs  they  endured. 
The  peon,  under  the  Diaz  regime,  was  always  to  be  a  peon. 
This  was  the  status  quo  question  all  over  again.  When  the 
revolution  burst  forth,  the  workers  seized  their  opportunity 
and  began  to  organize  into  local  sindicatos.  Later  they 
united  these  local  sindicatos  into  district  organizations. 
They  fought  in  the  revolution  as  industrial  units,  or  unions, 
and  the  officers  of  the  Machinists'  Union,  or  the  Bricklay- 
ers' Union,  or  what-not,  would  be  the  officers  of  that  par- 
ticular unit  of  the  army,  in  many  cases.  The  leaders  of 

91 


92  JAMES   LORD 

this  movement  in  its  inception — those  who  elected  to  lead 
the  men — were  men  of  education.  In  many  cases  they  were 
men  of  culture,  professors,  theorists,  men  who  had  become 
radical  by  reading  but  who  had  learned  nothing  in  the  field 
of  bitter  experience,  and  this  knowledge  is  necessary  to  one 
who  would  really  understand  the  laboring  man.  Men  with 
good  intentions  took  charge  of  this  movement,  and  it  spread 
rapidly  through  Mexico.  It  was  known  as  La  Casa  Del 
Obrero  Mundiat,  or  "House  of  the  Workers  of  the  World." 
The  Mexicans  have  a  strong  admiration  for  the  French. 
They  like  to  do  things  as  they  think  the  French  would  do 
them,  and  this  was  shown  in  the  formation  of  their  labor 
movement.  This  explains  the  origin  and  the  peculiar  form 
of  that  movement  in  its  beginning.  Tune  and  experience 
are  changing  their  methods  and  ideas.  They  are  getting 
their  feet  on  the  ground.  They  have  already  had  consid- 
erable experience  with  other  movements,  and  it  is  the  sen- 
timent of  the  workers  throughout  Mexico  at  this  tune  to 
form  a  strong,  practical  trade  movement,  a  national  federa- 
tion, composed  of  national,  self-governed  unions  of  trades 
and  industries.  They  are  also  developing  leadership  among 
the  workers — leadership  that  I  prophesy  will  be  heard  from 
and  will  be  known  hi  the  industrial  world  with  no  discredit 
to  their  ability.  They  are  going  along,  trying  their  best  to 
build  the  movement  into  such  a  form  that  they  may  get 
the  best  results  for  themselves.  They  realize  that  other 
people  who  came  from  lower  depths,  even,  than  the  Mexican 
worker,  have  worked  out  their  industrial  redemption.  They 
feel  that  they  are  to  have  at  least  one  trial  in  their  own 
country.  We  can  pass  a  more  intelligent  judgment  upon 
them  after  they  have  been  given  a  fair  trial.  They  are 
going  to  get  that  trial,  and  they  surely  have  my  best  wishes. 
Some  years  ago,  a  group  of  plucky  forward  looking  men 
from  the  different  Pan- American  countries,  together  with  a 
few  of  us  in  this  American  labor  movement,  began  to  talk 
things  over,  began  to  try  to  deal  with  the  situation  as  it 
existed.  We  began  by  meeting  periodically.  The  thing 
developed  until  a  sort  of  committee  was  automatically  formed 
to  deal  with  Pan-American  labor  affairs.  It  grew  so  that 


LABOE   IN   MEXICO  93 

nearly  all  the  time  some  representatives  of  Honduras, 
Argentina,  the  West  Indies,  or  Mexico,  were  in  Washington 
working  away  at  the  idea  of  a  Pan-American  Federation  of 
Labor — a  Pan-American  International.  They  knew  of  the 
International  of  Europe — in  fact,  of  the  world — of  which 
America  is  a  part.  The  idea  was  to  build  another  Interna- 
tional to  deal  with  the  labor  situation  in  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere. Out  of  these  efforts  carried  on  by  a  few  men  grew 
the  Pan-American  Federation  of  Labor;  and  at  the  Laredo 
conference,  in  November,  1918,  the  organization  was  finally 
launched  forth.  Its  first  international  meeting  was  a  very 
good  conference,  the  proceedings  of  which  are  well  worth 
the  tune  of  any  man  or  woman  to  read.  It  was  a  good  be- 
ginning, but  we  expect  to  improve  on  the  ideas  that  came 
before  that  Pan-American  conference  as  time  goes  by. 

Our  first  attempts  were  to  set  up  an  institution  that  would 
make  for  better  fraternal  relations  between  the  workers  of 
the  different  Pan-American  countries — Make  for  better  con- 
ditions for  workmen  emigrating  from  one  country  to  another, 
set  up  a  central  bureau  of  information  regarding  the  general 
economic  conditions  in  these  countries,  and  so  on.  We 
feel  that  we  have  been  able,  to  a  large  extent,  to  prevent 
bloodshed  on  at  least  two  occasions  by  the  intelligent  use  of 
knowledge  in  our  possession  and  the  feeling  that  would  be 
engendered  in  the  workers  of  the  different  countries  and  the 
intelligent  use  of  the  prestige  that  we  had  attained  through 
our  comparatively  small  efforts.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
work  for  the  Pan-American  Federation  of  Labor  to  do. 
There  is  a  desire  being  manifested  by  the  units  composing 
it  to  "hew  to  the  line"  and  do  that  work,  and  as  tune  went 
on,  it  was  decided  that  a  committee  from  the  American 
labor  movement  should  go  through  Mexico,  at  least.  There 
were  certain  things  that  needed  to  be  attended  to — certain 
things  that  needed  doing.  So,  in  the  summer  of  1918,  John 
Murray,  a  Union  printer,  a  man  who  was  very  familiar  with 
the  affairs  of  Mexico,  one  who  has  gone  over  the  "divide" 
since  that  time,  to  the  distinct  loss  of  the  workers  of  all  the 
Pan-American  countries,  Santiago  Iglesias,  a  native  Span- 
iard, and  your  humble  servant,  were  selected  to  undertake 


94  JAMES   LORD 

this  mission.  I  am  going  to  tell  you  of  just  a  few  of  our  ex- 
periences that  will  give  you  an  idea  of  the  existing  situation 
better  than  any  other  method  that  I  can  think  of  just  now. 

We  went  in  by  way  of  Laredo.  We  stopped  at  Saltillo, 
the  capital  of  Coahuila,  for  a  considerable  time.  We  found 
that  the  National  Federation  of  Labor  for  Mexico  had  al- 
ready been  formed  four  or  five  days  before  our  arrival.  We 
knew  there  was  considerable  sentiment  for  this  thing  being 
done,  but  we  had  no  idea  that  it  would  be  done  so  quickly. 
We  found  that  the  governor  of  that  state  had  taken  it  upon 
himself  to  send  out  an  official  call  to  all  the  labor  centers  in 
the  country  of  Mexico,  requesting  them  to  assemble  at 
Saltillo,  or  in  the  State  of  Coahuila,  for  the  purpose  of  using 
their  best  endeavors  to  form  a  suitable  solidified  national 
federation.  He  made  no  attempt  to  fasten  himself  on  the 
movement  or  to  interfere  with  it  in  any  way.  He  simply 
sent  out  the  call,  addressed  the  delegation,  and  gave  a  little 
wholesome  advice,  and  said:  "It  is  yours,  go  ahead." 

We  went  to  the  places  in  Mexico  where  we  could  get  in 
touch  with  the  people  who  could  give  us  information  of  the 
actual  existing  situation.  We  met  President  Carranza  and 
the  cabinet  officers,  and  we  talked  the  situation  over  very 
plainly  with  them.  We  found  some  encouraging  sentiment, 
and  we  found  some  sentiment  that  was  not  very  encouraging, 
in  official  circles.  The  Mexican  who  was  holding  office  at 
that  tune  would  make  the  admission  very  soon  after  begin- 
ning conversation  with  you  that  he  was  a  State  Socialist 
and  believed  in  State  Socialism.  In  discussing  with  them 
what  they  really  did  believe,  or  how  they  construed  State 
Socialism,  one  got  something  of  a  shock.  They  did  not 
believe  that  labor  unions  were  particularly  needed.  They 
did  not  think  that  workers  ought  to  take  it  upon  themselves 
to  establish  international  relations.  They  thought  the  gov- 
ernment should  control  not  only  the  industries,  but  the  ac- 
tions of  the  individuals  in  their  country.  They  would  take 
care  of  their  labor  conditions,  the  matter  of  wages,  and  the 
general  welfare  of  workmen.  They  would  take  care  of  the 
international  relations,  also.  There  would  not  be  any 
more  strikes.  It  was  not  good  for  the  workers  to  have 


LABOR   IN   MEXICO  95 

strikes.  They  were  State  Socialists!  That  was  a  new 
definition  of  State  Socialism  to  me.  We  found  that  many 
of  these  gentlemen  had  that  idea  and  were  using  it  in  that 
way.  We  found  that  every  bit  of  real  opposition  we  en- 
countered from  the  time  we  crossed  the  border  until  we  got 
back  came  from  those  men  who  were  handling  the  campaign 
of  German  propaganda.  There  was  not  anything  else  that 
appeared  in  it — those  men  and  their  tools  and  hirelings. 

After  having  some  meetings  and  after  having  one  big, 
central  meeting  in  Mexico  City,  it  was  decided  that  I  should 
address  a  last  meeting  to  be  held  in  a  large  labor  hall  in 
that  city.  The  papers  came  out — El  Democrata,  National- 
ista — not  pro-German,  but  German — absolutely  German 
owned  and  sold  as  the  German  press.  These  papers  had 
never  been  friendly  to  the  workers'  cause,  but  the  reverse. 
They  suddenly  became  ultra-radical.  An  article  appeared 
in  the  editorial  columns  and  on  the  front  pages  of  a  syndical- 
ist, or  anarchist  nature,  every  morning  and  every  evening, 
written  by  a  man  who  knew  how  to  write  that  kind  of  stuff — 
I  have  had  some  experience  reading  it !  He  was  no  ordinary 
man  that  wrote  those  editorials.  They  were  warning  the 
workers  of  Mexico  against  these  gringoes,  these  tools.  They 
were  telling  them  that  their  only  hope  was  to  stay  in  the 
syndicalist  camp.  The  only  hope  of  the  workers  was  to 
fight  any  attempt  of  the  American  labor  movement  to  en- 
snare them.  They  were  not  advocating  national  ownership 
or  public  ownership,  but  they  claimed  that  the  industrial 
group  could  take  that  industry  and  determine  in  their  wis- 
dom what  to  do  with  that  industry.  They  were  getting 
out  these  articles  all  the  time.  They  were  running  editorials 
saying  that  these  gringoes,  who  should  not  be  allowed  to 
remain  in  Mexico  another  minute,  were  here  to  get  Mexico 
into  this  war,  to  fight  her  good  friend,  Germany,  alongside 
of  the  thief  and  the  murderer,  the  United  States,  the  "  Colos- 
sus of  the  North."  We  got  copies  of  all  these  papers  and 
kept  them.  They  make  very  interesting  reading.  No  mat- 
ter what  we  said  at  these  meetings,  they  simply  distorted 
them  to  suit  themselves.  Unfortunately  for  them,  in  this 
case,  as  well  as  in  many  other  cases,  these  people  showed 


96  JAMES   LORD 

that  they  were  hardly  as  intelligent  as  they  were  industrious. 
They  overdid  the  thing  to  such  an  extent  that  the  situation 
reacted  in  our  favor.  In  the  first  mass  meeting  that  I 
attended  and  addressed,  they  had  a  fine,  choice  collection  of 
American  wobblies — I.  W.  W.'s — who  had  slipped  away 
from  the  United  States  to  get  away  from  the  draft.  The 
Pan-American  countries  are  infested  with  these  people 
today.  They  are  anywhere  where  they  can  stir  up  trouble 
and  inflame  people's  minds,  just  as  buzzards  gather  around 
the  carcass  of  a  dead  horse.  Mexico  City  is  a  Mecca  for 
them.  They  came  into  these  meetings.  They  raised  their 
objections.  They  tried  to  stir  up  insurrection  in  the  audi- 
ence. In  every  case  I  had  a  man  who  could  point  them  out, 
and  when  they  came  in,  I  challenged  them  to  come  up  on 
to  the  platform  and  ask  their  questions  out  in  the  open  and 
say  what  they  had  to  say,  with  the  alternative  of  going  out 
of  the  meeting.  I  put  it  up  to  them,  and  so  did  the  other 
speakers.  They  would  not  face  the  music.  They  wanted 
to  stir  up  a  row  and  get  the  situation  beyond  control,  and 
then  their  work  would  be  done.  They  kept  this  up  contin- 
ually. We  were  gradually  getting  the  workers  to  under- 
stand this  campaign.  We  did  not  tell  them  to  do  as  we  had 
done;  we  told  them  plainly  that  our  movement  was  not  per- 
fect, that  we  had  made  many  mistakes,  and  that  we  expected 
to  make  many  more.  It  was  the  movement  that  the  work- 
ers of  North  America  had  made,  and  it  would  always  be 
made  to  conform  to  the  highest  average  intelligence  and 
desires  of  the  workers.  It  would  be  changed  just  as  they 
wanted  to  change  it.  We  told  them  that  each  country  par- 
ticipating in  the  Pan-American  Federation  would  have  to 
build  its  own  movement  in  its  own  way,  according  to  its 
own  light;  but  we  could  all  learn  by  meeting  on  common 
ground  and  exchanging  our  views  and  experiences  and  pos- 
sibly we  could  learn  also  by  one  another's  mistakes.  Never- 
theless, the  papers  were  warning  the  workers  to  stay  out. 
We  were  trying  to  ensnare  them.  Stories  were  printed  in 
El  Democrata  and  Nationalists  and  Universal  about  the 
stealing  of  Texas  and  Arizona  and  California,  of  outrages 
committed  daily  on  innocent  women  and  children  of  the 


LABOR   IN   MEXICO  97 

border  states.  The  story  of  almost  every  atrocity  happen- 
ing at  that  time  on  the  Western  front  was  taken  almost 
literally,  the  names  changed,  and  the  thing  made  to  apply  to 
the  " Colossus  of  the  North!"  I  will  simply  say  that  for  a 
few  weeks  down  there  it  was  not  one  of  the  kind  of  times 
when  you  got  the  blues  because  you  had  nothing  to  do  or 
nothing  to  think  about. 

Now  for  the  illiterates,  for  that  great  army,  the  beggar 
class,  whose  future  no  living  man  can  forecast.  Two  halls, 
or  pulque  joints,  were  kept  open  in  violation  of  the  law. 
Third-rate  whiskey  is  mild  by  the  side  of  "pulky"  and  what 
it  will  do  to  you.  One  was  called  Hindenburg,  and  the 
other,  U-Boat  38.  They  showed  pictures  of  those  atrocities 
in  there.  They  told  stories  of  these  atrocities — what  was 
going  on  in  Coahuial,  and  Sonora,  and  Chihuahua.  Never- 
theless, while  the  sentiment  dominating  Mexico  City  at  the 
time  we  were  there  was  pro-German,  the  sentiment  was 
created  by  those  in  control  at  that  time,  and  the  sentiment 
amongst  the  illiterates  was  surely  pro-German  because  of  the 
stuff  they  got  in  the  Hindenburg  and  in  U-Boat  38.  The 
thinking  class — the  thinking  class  among  the  workers  and 
in  the  business  circles  were  pro- Ally.  I  made  up  my  mind 
at  that  time,  and  I  have  never  changed  it,  that  Carranza 
was  hopelessly  pro-German.  I  say  that  because  I  saw  what 
was  going  on  every  day.  I  know  the  stories  I  heard,  but 
I  am  not  going  by  the  stories:  I  am  going  on  what  I  saw, 
and  I  can  believe  that.  The  report  was  that  Pablo  Gon- 
zales  was  pro- Ally!  He  was  a  sort  of  Secretary  of  War  with 
the  army  taken  away  from  him.  He  had  no  army.  You 
could  spot  the  officer — the  military  officer — who  was  taking 
the  money.  Any  man  or  woman  here  could  pick  him  out. 
They  trained  their  mustaches  to  grow  straight  up.  They 
tried  even  to  do  a  little  of  the  goose  step  when  they  were 
walking,  shamelessly,  brazenly,  letting  people  know  what 
they  were  at.  The  sentiment  in  Mexico  City  was  that  the 
Western  front  could  not  stand  up.  When  the  Germans 
went  through  to  the  Channel  ports,  the  Mexicans  believed 
that  it  was  only  a  matter  of  time  before  the  defense  on  the 
Western  front  would  break  utterly,  and  when  that  world 


98  JAMES   LORD 

domination  came,  the  young  fellow  who  was  a  trained  mili- 
tarist would  not  be  the  worst  off  in  that  kind  of  a  combina- 
tion. That  applied  individually  and  nationally.  All  these 
things  entered  into  our  efforts  to  make  clear  to  the  workers 
there  what  the  Pan-American  was  for. 

Now,  regarding  conditions  in  Mexico,  as  to  whether  a 
part  of  the  people  are  fit  to  rule,  or  not.  We  have  had  the 
universal  ballot  in  this  country,  and  I  will  say  that  unless 
that  eighty  per  cent  of  the  Mexican  people  used  the  ballot 
more  intelligently  than  we  do  here,  there  would  be  no  danger 
of  the  intelligent  twenty  per  cent  minority  being  submerged! 
Man  is  a  creature  of  environment.  If  an  American  worker 
or  a  British  worker  had  to  go  to  his  work  continually  on 
a  diet  of  frijoks  and  tortillas,  if  there  is  any  power  on 
earth  could  make  him  do  that,  I  do  not  know  that  his  effi- 
ciency or  his  productivity  would  be  as  great,  even,  as  that  of 
the  Mexican  laborer.  He  might  possibly  stand  a  whole  lot 
more  than  he  stands.  I  have  lived  on  that  fare  for  a  little 
while,  but  not  more  than  a  minute  longer  than  I  could  help ! 
Man  is  a  creature  of  environment.  Is  it  right,  is  it  intelli- 
gent, to  forever  condemn  the  peon,  who  never  got  enough 
wages  to  enable  him  to  get  anything  better  than  red  beans 
and  flapjacks,  which  do  not  produce  enough  strength  for 
the  work  he  is  expected  to  do?  For  the  amount  of  work  he 
is  able  to  do,  he  cannot  earn  any  more,  and  therefore  he 
cannot  do  any  more,  for  he  cannot  obtain  the  necessary  food 
on  which  to  work.  What  chance  has  he?  Somebody  else 
has  been  unfit  to  govern,  I  should  think,  for  they  have  evi- 
dently failed  in  their  mission.  The  Mexican  worker,  as  I 
understand  him,  is  sick  and  tired  of  revolutions.  He  is  sick 
and  tired  of  the  whole  game.  I  do  not  know  whether  he 
ever  would  be  any  better  than  he  is,  for  he  has  never  had 
any  chance  to  be  any  better.  Give  them  better  environ- 
ments; give  them  something  to  eat;  give  them  other  condi- 
tions under  which  to  live  besides  this  state  of  constant  revo- 
lution. Give  them  a  living  wage,  and  then  pass  judgment 
on  them  after  they  have  had  a  reasonable  chance  to  try  to 
make  better  men  of  themselves.  It  may  be,  of  course, 
that  the  Mexican  has  lost  his  mental  stamina.  People 


LABOR   IN   MEXICO  99 

talk  about  this  proposition  lightly.  Perhaps  if  a  man  would 
live  on  a  diet  of  frijoles  and  tortillas  for  twelve  months 
and  work  in  the  mines  on  that  kind  of  fare,  he  might  be 
better  able  to  pass  judgment  on  these  people.  Let  him  put 
himself  in  the  peon's  place  for  once.  And  I  respectfully 
recommend  to  the  directors  of  industry  in  Mexico,  whether 
British,  American,  or  native,  that  they  try  out  a  system  of 
joint  relations  with  their  workers,  that  they  recognize  at 
last  the  human  equation  in  this  thing,  that  they  give  them  a 
living  wage,  that  they  build  them  better  homes,  that  they 
teach  them  hygiene  and  cleanliness,  that  they  teach  them 
some  things  worth  while — teach  them  some  things  besides 
hatred.  A  slave  may  have  feared  his  master,  but  he  never 
respected  him.  If  a  chain  is  fastened  to  a  slave,  the  other 
end  of  the  chain  is  fastened  to  his  master.  I  have  always 
revolted  against  this  caste  idea  since  I  was  able  to  under- 
stand what  it  was.  That  old  prayer,  "God  bless  me  and 
my  wife,  my  son  John  and  his  wife,  us  four  and  no  more," 
will  not  save  poor. Mexico.  The  man  who  helps  Mexico 
will  have  to  help  her  in  the  spirit  of  a  broader  vision  than 
that.  The  way  to  help  Mexico,  in  my  opinion,  is  to  help 
without  trespassing,  to  give  them  an  opportunity  to  save 
themselves,  and  we  will  then  see  what  they  will  do. 

I  remember,  a  few  years  ago,  I  was  attending  a  meeting 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  at  San  Francisco. 
There  is  a  field  down  in  southeastern  Arizona  known  as  the 
Clifton,  Morenci  Metcalf  field,  a  field  almost  unknown  to  us 
at  that  time.  I  have  been  a  miner  since  I  was  eleven  years 
old,  and  I  have  been  pretty  much  over  the  mining  fields  of 
the  world.  I  have  had  some  practical  experience.  This 
field  was,  however,  unknown  to  me.  I  had  never  been  in  it. 
It  is  practically  in  old  Mexico.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the 
people  there  speak  Spanish.  There  are  a  few  Spaniards 
there,  but  the  great  majority  of  the  people  are  Mexicans. 
They  had  gone  on  a  strike  in  that  field.  They  did  not 
belong  to  any  organization.  They  had  simply  got  to  the 
jumping-off  place — to  the  place  it  is  dangerous  to  let  any 
group  of  workmen  arrive  at — to  the  place  where  they  felt 
that  they  had  nothing  to  lose.  They  all  went  out  on  strike. 


100  JAMES   LORD 

There  was  not  a  speck  of  smoke  in  that  field,  from  a  miner 
to  a  smelter.  Strangely  enough,  in  that  particular  instance 
the  sheriff  was  not  against  the  strike,  and  it  is  the  one 
lone  case  in  the  hard  rock  mining  states  that  I  know  of. 
Strangely  enough,  in  that  particular  case  the  governor  of 
the  state  was  not  against  it;  and  strangely  enough,  in  that 
particular  case  the  militia  was  not  used  to  kill  the  strikers. 
The  militia  went  in  and  kept  the  peace.  The  gunmen,  the 
same  group  of  which  a  few  are  dining  in  Paradise  since  a 
few  days  ago  in  West  Virginia,  were  in  there.  Some  of  the 
best  informed  men  went  to  them  and  said:  "We  do  not 
want  trouble  with  you;  we  have  not  done  anything  to  you. 
Don't  let  the  sun  go  down  on  you.  If  you  come  back  the 
second  time,  we  shall  not  be  so  polite  to  you  as  we  are  now." 
The  gunmen  went  out;  and  that  is  the  only  strike  I  know  of 
hi  the  West  where  the  peace  was  kept  and  not  a  dollar's 
worth  of  property  was  lost.  Imagine  my  feelings.  I  was 
there  merely  to  look  it  over  and  see  if  I  could  be  of  assist- 
ance to  them  or  give  them  any  advice.  I  found  every- 
thing so  different  from  anything  I  had  ever  experienced. 
Dick  Franz  was  the  groceryman  there,  and  all  his  neighbors 
and  customers  were  Mexicans.  He  extended  them  credit 
on  beans  and  flour — the  same  old  fare,  for  strike  fare  was 
the  same  fare  that  they  got  when  they  were  working.  He 
extended  them  credit  to  the  extent  of  $34,000,  and  was 
ready  to  fold  up  his  tent  and  steal  away  when  I  got  there. 
He  had  ruined  his  own  credits.  He  had  no  regrets;  he  kept 
saying,  "We  got  them  licked,  if  only  the  beans  had  held 
out."  In  that  situation,  I  sat  down  and  wired  every  fellow 
in  the  labor  movement  I  knew  who  would  get  a  move  on 
him,  and  donations  began  to  come  in.  We  got  enough 
money  to  pay  for  a  carload  of  beans,  gave  the  money  to 
Franz,  who  got  the  beans  and  re-established  his  credit  all 
along  the  line.  By  this  time  the  Department  of  Labor  was 
interested  and  came  into  the  situation,  and  one  of  the  best 
men  in  that  service  happened  to  go  out  there — a  man  who 
was  a  thorough  miner,  hard  rock  and  coal,  and  who  knows 
the  game.  Through  his  efforts  a  stockholders'  meeting  was 
held  in  El  Paso,  and  the  stockholders  all  came  from  Scot- 


LABOR   IN   MEXICO  101 

land.  It  was  their  first  time  in  this  country.  They  were  a 
set  of  very  fine  gentlemen.  They  had  no  idea  of  the  cor- 
ruption and  the  graft  that  had  been  practiced  on  these 
miners.  As  fast  as  cases  were  proven  at  the  hearings,  and 
as  boss  or  sub-boss,  or  anyone  else  was  proven  guilty  of 
graft  or  anything  irregular,  his  head  was  cut  off  officially, 
and  he  was  told  to  go.  They  carefully  considered  all  the 
demands  of  the  miners,  and  on  their  own  statement,  which 
is  in  writing,  they  admitted  that  the  demands  were  not 
unreasonable  and  that  they  would  meet  them  at  once. 
The  settlement  finally  hinged  on  what  wages  the  miners 
were  to  get.  They  got  the  eight-hour  day,  better  homes, 
better  conditions  underground,  and  the  promise  of  things 
such  as  ventilation  that  meant  a  great  deal  to  them.  They 
could  not  agree  on  the  wage.  The  men,  in  their  first  strike, 
and  with  victory  apparently  within  their  grasp,  wanted  to 
establish  the  standard  wage  in  the  copper  mines  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  In  this  particular  case  the  ore  was  not 
very  rich;  it  is  what  they  call  low  grade  ore.  In  this  case 
the  production  of  ore  per  man  was  just  a  fraction  more 
than  half  the  production  from  any  of  the  other  camps.  I 
knew  the  reason.  You  had  only  to  look  at  the  men  to  know 
why  they  did  not  produce  more.  They  had  not  it  in  them 
to  do  it.  But  they  wanted  that  wage.  We  told  them  it 
was  a  physical  impossibility  to  do  it,  commercially.  We 
said  to  them,  "You  will  put  this  field  out  of  business,  and 
then  you  will  all  be  through.  You  will  get  a  good,  substan- 
tial advance  in  wages.  We  advise  you  to  take  it.  You 
can  live  better;  you  can  get  better  food;  you  are  going  to 
have  a  lot  better  working  conditions.  Now  try  to  raise  the 
production  and  show  that  there  is  some  benefit  in  these  im- 
provements; and  whenever  you  do,  they  will  go  into  confer- 
ence with  you  again  and  discuss  the  question  with  you 
again."  They  went  back  to  work,  and  by  degrees  the  pro- 
duction per  man  was  brought  up  until  it  was  on  par  with  the 
other  mining  fields.  The  miners  lived  better,  had  better 
homes,  and  did  better  in  every  way,  and  in  six  weeks — pos- 
sibly two  months — from  the  day  they  returned  to  work, 
Dick  Franz  was  paid  his  $34,000  by  those  Mexicans.  There 


102  JAMES   LORD 

is  an  instance  that  shows  what  can  be  done  by  the  Mexicans 
when  they  are  given  something  to  eat  and  a  chance  to  show 
what  they  can  do. 

I  could  cite  many  other  incidents  that  have  occurred  in 
these  United  States  with  Mexican  workmen  where  the  same 
thing  has  taken  place.  In  the  mining  camps  in  Colorado, 
New  Mexico,  and  other  states  where  the  Mexican  miner 
owns  his  home,  has  a  small  automobile,  in  some  cases,  he 
has  proved  that  he  is  as  good  a  miner  as  there  is  in  the 
camp.  Talk  about  going  down  to  them — you  can  go  down 
to  them  and  bring  them  up  to  your  own  level;  you  don't 
have  to  stay  down  there  with  them.  These  things  have  been 
done  before,  and  they  can  be  done  again;  and  until  the  Mexi- 
can worker  is  treated  in  that  kind  of  a  spirit,  until  some  intel- 
ligence is  manifested  in  connection  with  this  problem,  there 
will  be  no  peace  in  Mexico. 

I  went  through  the  coal  fields  and  the  hard  rock  mining 
fields  in  Mexico  in  1918,  and  today  the  wage  is  a  peso  and 
a  quarter  a  day — a  dollar  and  a  quarter  (Mexican  money) 
and  the  cost  of  living  is  higher  there  than  it  is  here.  How  do 
they  do  it?  How  can  they  give  their  children  enough  to 
eat?  How  can  they  do  their  work?  How  can  they  raise 
decent  children?  How  would  you  like  to  have  such  condi- 
tions exist  in  the  United  States?  If  men's  environments 
are  unproved,  they  will  become  better  and  more  tolerant 
men.  There  will  be  better  little  boys  and  girls,  and  they 
will  become  better  men  and  women.  Somebody  is  to  blame 
besides  the  peon.  I  am  not  afraid  to  go  down  to  him.  I 
have  been  there  often,  and  I  have  brought  him  up,  too.  I 
am  not  afraid  of  that  80  per  cent,  and  I  am  not  their  judge, 
either.  I  have  not  been  that  good  in  my  life  that  I  can  pass 
judgment  on  that  80  per  cent.  I  have  done  many  things 
in  my  life  that  have  been  wrong,  but  I  have  always  tried  to 
play  the  game  squarely  with  my  fellow  worker.  Well,  a 
peso  and  a  quarter  is  the  wage  down  there.  In  the  bitumi- 
nous fields  it  is  a  little  better,  for  it  is  mostly  piecework,  and 
they  might  make  a  dollar  and  a  half  or  two  dollars  and  a 
half.  The  only  organizations  that  are  national  in  character 
are  those  of  the  coal  miner,  the  textile  worker  and  the  rail- 


LABOR  IN  MEXICO  103 

road  worker.  The  "land  of  promise"  for  the  Mexicans  did 
not  materialize  under  Carranza,  by  any  means,  and  it  never 
could.  He  was  a  disappointment  to  the  workers;  there  is 
no  question  about  that.  I  was  in  Mexico  City  one  tune 
when  they  forbade  the  street  railway  workers  from  holding 
a  peaceable  parade,  and  they  were  100  per  cent  organized 
there  at  that  time.  They  were  told  what  would  happen  to 
them  if  they  held  it.  I  was  in  position  to  hear  of  these 
things,  being  in  different  parts  of  Mexico  from  tune  to  time. 
Regarding  the  new  regime,  it  is  superfluous  for  me  to  say 
that  I  do  not  know  what  will  happen.  Nobody  can  be  a 
prophet  regarding  conditions  in  Mexico  with  any  safety. 
I  know  the  men  in  charge,  and  I  would  stake  my  future  on 
the  judgment  and  good  intention  of  at  least  some  of  them. 
Certainly,  it  is  true  that  they  helped  to  put  Carranza  in 
power,  and  they  were  disappointed  in  him,  for  he  did  not 
make  good.  Many  of  us,  with  our  splendid  enlightenment 
and  qualifications,  might  have  been  loud  in  our  praise  for 
Woodow  Wilson  a  little  while  ago  and  now  be  disappojnted 
in  him.  That  is  human  nature,  and  it  does  not  belong 
alone  to  Mexico.  You  have  got  to  give  people  a  chance  to 
save  themselves.  You  cannot  hand  democracy  down  to 
anybody;  it  cannot  be  done.  You  must  give  them  a  chance 
to  achieve  democracy,  and  that  is  the  only  way  it  will  exist 
in  this  world.  The  labor  movement  is  what  the  workers 
make  it.  The  syndicalist  movement,  as  it  appears  in  Latin- 
American  countries,  is  the  natural  expression  that  comes 
after  ages  of  repression  and  is  the  natural  vent  to  the  the- 
ories and  ideals  of  the  entire  Latin  race.  We  do  not  tell 
them  what  to  do.  We  tell  them  our  own  experiences,  and 
they  are  trying  to  make  their  own  movement  conform  to 
ours.  My  judgment  is  that  they  will  have  a  strong,  virile 
movement  in  Mexico;  and  that  in  the  other  countries  the 
labor  movement  will  follow  pretty  much  as  the  Mexican 
movement  goes.  Whether  they  succeed  or  not,  there  must 
be  the  opportunity  afforded  them  to  become  real  human 
beings,  with  the  right  to  live  as  human  beings  should  live, 
and  until  such  conditions  develop  there  will  never  be  satis- 
faction or  internal  peace  in  Mexico.  I  am  going  to  help 


104  JAMES   LORD 

them  all  I  can.  My  best  wishes  go  with  Obregon.  I  believe 
he  will  be  the  next  president  of  Mexico.  I  said  that  a  year 
ago.  I  personally  hope  he  will  be  the  one  chosen.  I  believe 
he  is  big  enough  to  do  the  things  that  must  be  done.  I 
believe  he  can  convince  the  people  that  the  constitution  of 
Mexico  wants  changing,  that  some  of  their  idealism  should 
be  set  aside,  and  that  they  should  do  the  very  necessary 
work  that  needs  doing.  As  the  constitution  was  drafted, 
where  the  Government  owned  everything  below  the  surface 
of  the  ground  and  all  other  things,  it  would  be  very  nice  and 
it  would  not  be  very  hard  to  manage  or  to  carry  it  into 
effect,  provided  they  could  lick  America  and  Great  Britain 
and  a  few  other  countries;  otherwise,  the  constitution  is 
unworkable.  Carranza  knew  very  well  that  it  was  unwork- 
able. I  believe  that  these  men  know  it  and  have  said  so, 
to  the  extent  that  they  can  change  anything  of  that  char- 
acter to  conform  to  intelligent,  sensible  progress.  The 
Mexican  worker  is  beginning  to  realize  that  he  has  unnec- 
sarily  wasted  a  lot  of  time  shouting,  "  salute  the  revolution 
sociale"  and  "capital  is  internationale,"  and  he  is  beginning 
to  feel  that  the  only  thing  that  is  international  is  labor,  and 
that  if  it  is  intelligently  organized,  the  worker  has  nothing 
to  fear,  no  matter  from  what  country  capital  comes.  He  is 
organized  to  the  place  where  he  can  take  care  of  his  own 
affairs,  and  in  this  way  he  will  take  care  of  himself  in  a 
better  way  than  he  will  by  simply  showing  and  demon- 
strating that  he  has  a  ton  of  philosophy  and  an  ounce  of 
real,  intelligent  fight — and  that  is  the  way  the  Mexican 
worker  has  been  sized  up,  up  to  date.  Let  us  not  pass 
judgment  upon  him  because  he  has  suddenly  acquired  revo- 
lutionary ideas.  Think  of  the  environment.  Think  of  his 
surroundings.  Let  us  be  glad  that  we  have  not  had  to 
endure  the  things  that  have  been  forced  upon  him.  When 
we  talk  of  social  status,  I  may  say  that  my  own  ancestors 
occupied  a  lower  social  status  than  the  Mexican  now  occu- 
pies, and  this  not  so  long  ago  either.  Think  of  the  environ- 
ment of  the  miners  in  Great  Britain.  It  was  not  so  long 
ago  that  the  records  showed  that  children  were  born  in  the 
mines.  I  have  seen  the  record  showing  that  one  mine 


LABOR   IN   MEXICO  105 

manager  traded  a  pony  for  a  man  with  a  neighboring  mine 
owner.  My  grandmother  worked  in  a  coal  mine  in  Britain 
when  she  was  a  very  small  child.  My  father  was  in  the 
mines  at  the  age  of  six.  My  mother  worked  in  a  woolen 
mill  at  seven  years  of  age.  They  are  both  living  in  this 
country  now,  and  they  are  intelligent  people.  I  know  some- 
thing about  this  low  status,  for  they  came  from  it,  and  the 
British  workers  have  come  from  a  pretty  low  status  in  a 
comparatively  short  time;  and  I  will  convince  every  man 
and  woman  I  can,  at  every  opportunity  that  comes  to  me, 
that  the  thing  to  do  is  to  throw  their  sheltering  arms  around 
these  unfortunate  neighbors  of  ours,  and  let  us  all  try  to  see 
if  we  cannot  make  better  progress;  we  will  see  if  there  cannot 
be  industrial  peace  and  progress  achieved  in  this  life.  We 
will  go  on  and  do  our  best  and  see  that  the  frijoles  and  tor- 
tillas standard  of  fare  disappear  forever  from  this  world, 
that  the  word  "  caste"  shall  have  gone  the  way  of  the  oxcart, 
and  that  the  sunlight  of  industrial  liberty  shall  shine  over 
all  the  children  of  men. 


RECONSTRUCTION  PROBLEMS  IN  MEXICO 

By  E.  D.  Trowbridge,  General  Manager  of  the  Mexico  Com- 
pany; formerly  General  Manager,  Mexican  Light 
and  Power  Company,  Mexico  City 

The  recent  turn-over  in  Mexico  could  scarcely  be  termed 
a  revolution.  It  represents  a  revolt,  within  the  same  party, 
of  a  large  faction  which  insists  on  a  more  progressive  gov- 
ernment, demands  speedy  pacification  of  the  country  and 
amis  at  more  cordial  relations  with  other  countries.  The 
turn-over  is  so  recent  that  there  has  scarcely  been  tune  to 
even  formulate  a  regular  program. 

The  change  was  a  quick  one,  practically  all  the  important 
military  units  going  over  to  the  new  movement.  The  gov- 
ernment, while  of  a  provisional  character  pending  elections, 
may  be  considered  a  continuation  of  the  liberal  or  revolu- 
tionary government  of  Carranza.  "While  the  new  leaders 
are  committed  to  certain  reforms  and  to  a  more  friendly 
attitude  toward  foreign  capital,  the  problems  with  which 
the  government  has  to  deal  have  not  changed.  These  prob- 
lems are  largely  based  on  economic  and  social  conditions. 
To  understand  them  it  is  necessary  to  briefly  review  condi- 
tions prevailing  in  Mexico  prior  to  the  Madero  revolution, 
and  to  outline  the  course  of  events  during  the  past  decade. 

During  the  centuries  of  Spanish  rule  the  Mexican  Indian 
was,  in  most  respects,  a  slave.  Independence  brought  little 
improvement  in  his  position,  as  independence  brought  noth- 
ing of  democracy  with  it.  Half  a  century  of  misrule  by 
selfish  and  unscrupulous  dictators  was  followed  by  a  certain 
effort  under  Benito  Juarez  to  improve  the  situation.  Then 
came  the  French  occupation,  and  the  ambitious  empire  of 
Maximilian,  followed  by  a  long  period  of  disorder  and  de- 
pression. Under  Porfirio  Diaz  the  country  was  pacified, 
public  credit  established,  railways  built  and  industry  de- 
veloped, but  little  was  done  for  the  mass  of  the  people. 

106 


KECONSTBTJCTION   PROBLEMS  IN  MEXICO  107 

The  scheme  of  government  was  a  highly  organized  machine 
run  by  a  few  men,  and  in  many  respects,  run  for  the  benefit 
of  the  land-owning  class.  Eighty  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion was  illiterate  and  ignorant.  There  was  nothing  in  the 
way  of  political  education. 

With  the  growth  of  a  middle  class,  and  the  development 
of  more  liberal  ideas,  particularly  in  the  north,  came  de- 
mands for  reforms  and  for  correction  of  abuses  which  had 
crept  into  the  government.  When  the  Madero  revolution, 
laughed  at  in  the  beginning,  swept  over  the  country,  the 
mass  of  ignorant  people  furnished  the  background  for  all 
sorts  of  disorder.  The  ignorant  peon,  easily  led  by  eager 
and  often  unscrupulous  leaders,  knew  no  distinction  between 
liberty  and  license.  He  was  willing  to  loot,  and  was  glad 
to  wreak  vengeance  on  those  whom  he  considered  as  his 
oppressors.  In  a  pure  spirit  of  vengeance  he  burned  crops, 
wrecked  buildings,  killed  or  drove  off  cattle,  and,  in  general, 
put  an  end  to  production  on  the  vast  estates.  When  the 
peon,  after  his  outburst  of  passion,  wanted  to  go  back  to 
work,  there  was  no  work  to  be  had.  Moreover,  with  a 
partial  suspension  of  production,  food  stuffs  went  up  in 
price.  The  peon  then  quite  naturally  turned  bandit.  A 
score  or  more  men,  acting  hi  a  band,  could  raid  a  big  rural 
estate  or  village,  obtain  loot  and  foodstuffs,  and  move  on. 
After  the  reactionary  movement  under  Huerta  and  his 
downfall,  there  followed  a  period  of  chaos,  with  Carranza 
who  represented  the  majority  of  the  Madero  following,  fight- 
ing for  the  control  of  the  country  against  Villa,  Zapata, 
Felix  Diaz  and  other  leaders  who  sometimes  acted  indepen- 
dently and  sometimes  together.  Through  1914,  1915  and 
1916,  civil  war  swept  over  the  country.  The  national  cap- 
ital changed  hands  eight  tunes.  Industry  stopped,  farm 
production  ceased,  railways  were  wholly  or  partially  closed 
down,  banks  suspended,  the  currency  was  demoralized, 
people  starved  to  death,  there  were  serious  epidemics  of 
typhus,  and,  in  general,  a  condition  approaching  anarchy 
prevailed. 

Under  the  conditions  it  was  inevitable  that  numerous 
local  bands  should  be  formed  who  proceeded  to  dominate 


108  E.   D.   TROWBRIDGE 

certain  sections  of  the  territory.  Frequently  these  bands 
had  the  backing  of  rural  property  owners,  who,  by  contrib- 
uting to  their  support,  could  be  assured  of  protection  against 
other  bands  or  against  the  incursions  of  the  leading  factions 
fighting  for  supremacy.  These  bands  gave  their  support  to 
Villa,  Zapata,  Feliz  Diaz,  Pelaez  or  other  leaders,  as  the 
case  might  be,  and  in  return  were  left  in  control  of  their 
own  particular  districts.  They  levied  more  or  less  irregular 
contributions  from  towns,  villages  and  rural  estates,  and 
for  a  time  were  the  substitute  for  any  regularly  constituted 
authority. 

There  are  several  phases  of  the  matter  to  be  considered. 
Brigandage  at  first  was  profitable,  but  gradually,  as  every- 
thing portable  or  salable  disappeared  from  rural  estates, 
the  attraction  in  the  life  disappeared.  In  the  confusion 
and  disorder  most  of  the  owners  of  farms,  ranches  or  estates 
had  abandoned  their  properties,  resulting,  in  many  sections, 
hi  a  complete  suspension  of  production.  The  bandit  then 
became  half-farmer,  half-bandit,  scratching  the  earth  to 
plant  a  little  corn  one  day  and  roaming  the  country  hi  search 
of  plunder  the  next.  Many  who  have  been  enjoying  this 
life  will  not  want  to  go  back  to  peaceful  pursuits,  and  the 
hardier  characters  will  continue  to  give  trouble  until  exter- 
minated or  compelled  by  thorough  patrolling  of  the  country 
to  live  orderly  lives.  For  the  majority  of  the  bandits  their 
roaming  will  cease  by  a  process  of  sheer  exhaustion.  The 
government  control  of  the  railways,  cities  and  towns  has 
become,  generally  speaking,  strong  enough  to  make  raids  of 
any  size  out  of  the  question.  There  is  nothing  left  on  rural 
estates.  The  bandits  are  beginning  to  realize  that  if  crops 
are  not  grown  they  themselves  will  starve.  Many  of  them 
are  begging  for  the  resumption  of  work  on  properties  which 
they  themselves  helped  wreck  only  a  short  time  ago.  Nat- 
urally every  property  put  back  in  production  will  auto- 
matically cut  down  the  amount  of  lawlessness.  Many 
properties  which  were  entirely  abandoned  for  three  or  four 
years  are  again  producing  crops. 

This  resumption,  coupled  with  abundant  rains  this  year 
has  reduced  the  price  of  corn,  the  staple  of  the  country, 


RECONSTRUCTION   PROBLEMS   IN  MEXICO  109 

from  $2.50  per  bushel  a  year  ago  to  a  price  of  $1.10  per 
bushel,  throughout  central  Mexico.  Naturally,  the  drop 
in  the  price  of  corn  will  improve  general  conditions,  through 
reduction  in  living  costs. 

In  some  sections  everything  is  ready  for  a  full  resumption 
of  agricultural  activity,  but  there  are  many  practical  ob- 
stacles in  the  way.  The  greatest  of  these  is  the  lack  of 
money.  Rural  properties  were  stripped  of  everything  port- 
able— livestock  needed  for  farm  work  was  long  ago  driven 
off.  Owners  of  properties  have  had  no  income  and  have 
nothing  to  start  up  with,  either  for  re-equipping  their  prop- 
erties or  paying  their  labor  until  they  can  get  return  from 
crops.  In  the  state  of  Morelos,  for  example,  the  great 
sugar  estates  lie  helpless.  Grinding  mills  and  machinery 
were  wrecked,  and  cane  lands  burned  over.  Fine  estates, 
watered  by  elaborate  irrigation  systems,  are  producing  noth- 
ing for  the  sole  reason  that  there  is  no  money  available. 

The  upheaval  in  Mexico  wrecked  the  banking  system, 
and  the  banks,  which  are  closed  or  are  doing  only  a  foreign 
exchange  business,  have  no  money  to  lend.  The  govern- 
ment has  bought  a  considerable  amount  of  farm  machinery 
which  it  proposes  to  sell  to  farmers  on  time.  While  this  will 
help  somewhat,  it  is  only  a  drop  in  the  bucket. 

The  question  of  full  resumption  of  work  on  the  large 
Mexican  estates  is  closely  related  to  the  general  agrarian 
problem  in  Mexico.  Under  the  Spanish  rule  great  grants 
of  land  were  made  to  court  favorites,  or  were  given  as 
rewards  for  campaigns  of  conquest.  These  estates  have,  in 
many  cases,  passed  down  intact  to  present  holders.  The 
church  acquired  great  estates,  and  many  of  these,  passing 
into  private  hands,  formed  the  basis  of  immense  holdings. 

The  estate  owners  were  the  only  people  of  wealth,  and 
the  tendency  was  for  them  to  keep  adding  to  their  properties. 
In  the  past  century  the  number  of  individual  holdings  has 
been  cut  in  two.  Ninety-six  large  estates  are  credited  with 
120,000,000  acres  of  land,  or  an  average  of  nearly  two 
thousand  square  miles  each.  Six  thousand  properties  rep- 
resent a  total  of  300,000,000  acres  of  land.  It  is  self-evi- 
dent that  such  a  condition  was  calculated  to  keep  the  mass 


110  E.   D.   TEOWBRIDGE 

of  the  people  in  practical  slavery,  to  keep  down  wages,  and 
to  curtail  production. 

Much  has  been  written  by  Mexican  reformers  on  the  agra- 
rian question,  and  there  has  been  a  general  demand  for 
breaking  up  these  vast  properties.  The  reformers  generally 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  mere  breaking  up  of  the  properties 
will  not  result  in  anything.  The  mam  difficulty  is  not 
agrarian  but  social.  The  average  peon,  turned  loose  on  a 
piece  of  land,  would  starve  to  death.  He  has  received,  for 
four  hundred  years,  wages  which  rarely  exceeded  seventy- 
five  centavos,  or  thirty-seven  cents.  He  has  had  to  sup- 
port Ms  family  on  this.  It  goes  without  saying  that  he  has 
no  savings.  He  can  not  buy  the  simplest  implements,  and 
he  has  nothing  to  live  on  until  harvest  time,  even  if  he  did 
manage  to  get  a  crop  planted.  He  must,  by  force  of  cir- 
cumstances, work  for  someone  else.  Besides,  while  he 
labors  well  under  the  direction  of  an  administrator,  he  knows 
little  or  nothing  of  farming,  and  would,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  be  at  a  complete  loss  if  placed  on  his  own  resources. 
He  has  no  outlook,  no  hope,  no  vision.  If  he  has  a  blanket 
and  can  get  enough  food  to  keep  body  and  soul  together 
he  is  content.  His  family  is  incidental,  and  he  gives  them 
food  until  they  can  shift  for  themselves. 

But  he  is  likeable,  docile  and  apt,  and  a  good,  faithful 
worker  so  long  as  he  needs  work,  but  he  does  not  care  a 
hang  for  tomorrow.  His  nature  is  not  going  to  be  changed 
by  the  adoption  of  reform  laws  or  new  agrarian  schemes. 
There  are  a  great  many  of  him  to  educate  and  to  develop 
to  the  point  where  he  will  have  some  idea  of  the  responsi- 
bilities of  life  and  citizenship.  This  will  take  time. 

Meanwhile  the  reformers,  in  their  anxiety  to  aid  the  peon, 
have  unconsciously  placed  obstacles  in  the  way  of  his  get- 
ting back  to  work.  The  constitution  of  1917,  while  theo- 
retically defensible  in  most  respects,  was  so  strongly  anti- 
capitalistic  in  three  or  four  features  as  to  arouse  the  general 
hostility  of  organized  capital,  thereby  greatly  reducing  the 
chances  of  securing  the  money  necessary  for  reconstruction 
purposes.  The  assembly  which  adopted  the  constitution 
was  extremely  radical,  and  went  on  the  theory  that  the  way 


RECONSTRUCTION  PROBLEMS  IN  MEXICO  111 

to  reform  is  to  reform,  without  considering  whether  the 
reforms  proposed  were  so  drastic  as  to  defeat  their  own 
ends.  Many  of  those  who  favored  extreme  measures  now 
realize  that  modifications  must  be  made,  and  various  gov- 
ernment commissions  are  studying  the  questions  involved. 

Mexico,  in  point  of  natural  progress,  was  behind  other 
nations,  and  her  form  of  autocratic  government  was  out  of 
keeping  with  modern  ideas.  The  immediate  effect  of  the 
revolution  was  to  upset  violently  the  economic  equilibrium 
of  the  country  and  to  produce  a  state  of  chaos.  Then  came 
the  stage  of  re-establishing  the  regular  authority,  return  to 
a  metal  currency  basis,  and  a  resumption  of  normal  indus- 
trial activity.  The  material  progress  made  in  this  stage 
has  been  surprisingly  good — almost  amazing.  This  is  indi- 
cated by  the  figures  of  exports  and  imports,  and  by  earnings 
of  railways,  public  utility  companies  and  industrial  concerns. 
The  question  of  full  pacification  of  the  country  is  interlocked 
with  problems  of  government  finance,  rehabilitation  of  the 
banking  system,  international  relations  and  internal  politics. 

Mexico's  relations  with  other  countries,  aside  from  ques- 
tions involving  the  protection  of  life  and  property,  have  an 
important  bearing  on  her  own  internal  development.  A 
situation  which  from  tune  to  time  threatens  foreign  inter- 
vention involves  so  much  uncertainty  as  to  retard  the  stab- 
ilizing of  affairs.  Moreover,  this  uncertainty  greatly  en- 
courages those  who  are  opposed  to  the  government.  Most 
important  of  all,  any  feeling  of  uncertainty  prevents  obtain- 
ing the  money  needed  for  reconstruction  purposes.  Mexi- 
can problems  seem  to  go  around  in  a  circle.  Foreign 
opposition  cuts  off  a  supply  of  money  badly  needed  for 
public  and  private  purposes;  without  money  operation  of 
the  great  agricultural  properties  cannot  be  resumed;  with- 
out such  resumption  there  is  no  work  for  thousands  of  peo- 
ple; this  in  turn  results  in  a  continuation  of  disorder  and 
creates  a  lack  of  confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  government 
to  handle  the  situation.  Economic  conditions  cannot  be 
fully  stabilized  until  a  banking  system  is  created  to  take 
care  of  the  ordinary  needs  of  the  country.  The  existing 
banks  can  do  nothing  because  their  assets  are  largely  tied 


112  E.   D.   TROWBRIDGE 

up  in  properties  which  are  producing  nothing.  The  govern- 
ment cannot  get  money  for  a  new  banking  system  because 
of  the  lack  of  confidence.  The  various  complications  in 
foreign  relations  develop  a  generally  hostile  attitude  on  the 
part  of  foreign  governments. 

This  appears  to  be  a  pessimistic  picture.  Actually,  it  is 
surprising  that  the  situation  is  not  much  worse  than  it  is. 
The  amazing  recuperative  power  of  the  country  has  been 
shown  by  the  recovery  to  semi-normal  conditions  from  a 
state  of  chaos  three  years  ago.  Exports  and  imports  are 
higher  than  ever  before,  railway  earnings  are  forty  per  cent 
higher  than  during  the  Diaz  regime,  government  income  is 
considerably  higher  than  ever,  and  the  country,  after  sev- 
eral years  of  suffering  under  a  depreciated  paper  currency, 
is  back  on  a  gold-and-silver  currency  basis.  Under  the 
Carranza  regime,  while  those  best  informed  felt  that  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  were  honest  and  patriotic,  there 
is  no  question  that  a  fearful  amount  of  graft  existed.  Many 
have  tried  to  paint  all  revolutionary  movements  in  Mexico 
as  nothing  more  than  factional  fights  to  control  the  national 
treasury.  In  this  view  I  cannot  agree,  as  it  seems  quite 
clear  that,  in  spite  of  elements  of  personal  greed,  there  was, 
in  the  Carranza  regime,  and  there  is  under  the  latest  revolt, 
a  sincere  desire  to  do  something  constructive  for  the  coun- 
try— something  to  elevate  the  status  of  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  country,  ill-prepared  as  it  was  for  anything  like 
a  democratic  form  of  government,  suffered  through  the 
opportunity  given  to  a  horde  of  greedy  petty  chiefs.  The 
new  government  will  doubtless  learn  that  many  of  the 
unscrupulous  have  not,  in  changing  their  political  clothing, 
made  any  change  in  their  selfish  motives.  Graft  may  be 
expected,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  it  must  be 
checked  and  eventually  eliminated  if  anything  tangible  is 
to  come  of  the  whole  liberal  movement  in  Mexico.  So 
long  as  graft  exists  on  a  large  scale  there  will  be,  both  in- 
ternally and  externally,  a  lack  of  confidence  in  Mexico.  A 
Mexican  friend  of  mine  observed  some  months  ago  that 
under  Diaz  graft  was  a  monopoly,  controlled  by  a  small 
ring,  but  that  it  had  been  "democratized,"  and  everyone 


RECONSTRUCTION   PROBLEMS   IN   MEXICO  113 

had  a  chance.  This  sort  of  feeling  goes  a  long  way  to 
convince  public  opinion,  both  in  Mexico  and  the  United 
States,  that  the  Mexican  situation  is  well-nigh  hopeless, 
and  that  nothing  but  a  strong  dictatorship,  or  outside  inter- 
vention, will  set  up  a  government  capable  of  handling  af- 
fairs. It  seems  vital  that  the  new  government  should, 
through  securing  the  support  of  all  intelligent  classes  hi 
Mexico,  make  every  endeavor  to  eliminate  the  grafting 
element.  There  are,  fortunately,  strong  indications  that 
the  new  government  will  secure  the  active  support  of 
many  of  the  old  conservative  element  in  Mexico — an  ele- 
ment at  first  opposed  to  any  reforms  but  now  convinced  that 
any  return  to  the  old  form  of  government  is  out  of  the 
question. 

If  foreign  relations  can  be  straightened  out  another  step 
will  have  been  taken  toward  getting  everything  in  order. 
The  general  question  of  these  relations  may  be  subdivided 
under  five  heads:  arrangements  to  avoid  border  troubles; 
protection  for  the  lives  of  Americans  and  other  foreigners 
resident  in  Mexico;  claims  for  loss  of  life  or  damage  to  prop- 
erties during  the  revolution;  treatment  of  foreign  capital 
invested  hi  Mexico;  and  the  controversy  over  the  Mexican 
oil  fields. 

The  question  of  border  troubles  is  a  part  of  the  general 
problem  of  a  complete  pacification  of  the  country.  The 
large  rebel  bands  in  the  Northern  part  of  Mexico  have  been 
pretty  well  broken,  up,  and  hi  a  large  part  of  the  territory 
conditions  are  good,  or  fairly  good.  Some  Americans 
claim  that  the  Mexican  military  do  not  want  peaceful  con- 
ditions restored,  as  they  can,  while  any  disorder  exists, 
impose  on  the  public.  There  are  many  cases  of  abuse  on 
the  part  of  unscrupulous  military  officials.  It  seems  quite 
idle,  however,  to  say  that  the  military  as  a  whole  make  no 
serious  effort  to  restore  peaceful  conditions.  The  relative 
prosperity  of  the  country,  as  compared  with  conditions  two 
years  ago,  is  proof  that  the  government  has  been  working 
steadily  for  pacification.  If  the  government  had  a  thor- 
oughly organized  and  well  equipped  army  the  program  of 
pacification  would  go  on  at  a  higher  rate  of  speed.  The 


114  E.   D.   TROWBRIDGE 

army  sprung  into  existence  during  the  revolution,  and,  gen- 
erally speaking,  was  officered  by  men  who  knew  little  of 
organization  or  discipline.  It  is  only  within  the  past  year 
that  much  has  been  done  toward  the  development  of  effi- 
cient military  standards.  Many  officers  are  unruly,  and  in 
certain  sections  there  is  much  reason  for  complaint.  How- 
ever, there  appears  to  be  some  improvement,  and  a  reali- 
zation, which  scarcely  existed  before,  that  a  central  authority 
must  be  reckoned  with. 

It  seems  essential,  in  connection  with  maintenance  of 
order  along  the  border  (and  in  other  sections  of  the  country) 
that  the  government  should  organize  a  strong  force  of  light- 
cavalry  to  act  as  rural  police — a  force  similar  to  the  old 
rurales.  Such  a  force,  supported  by  scouting  airplanes, 
would  soon  suppress  the  operations  of  bandits  of  any  size, 
and  would  greatly  reduce  the  chance  of  raids  across  the 
line.  It  would  also  result  in  greater  security  of  life  all  over 
the  country.  The  government  is  undoubtedly  making  ef- 
forts to  protect  the  lives  of  foreigners,  and  there  has  been 
in  the  past  two  years,  a  marked  diminution  in  attacks 
against  the  person.  During  the  chaotic  conditions  prevail- 
ing in  1914,  1915,  and  1916  many  lives  were  lost,  but  the 
outrages  in  the  past  year  have  been  few  in  number  and 
generally  in  territory  remote  from  regular  control.  Every 
American  living  in  Mexico  has  a  pretty  fair  idea  of  where 
it  is  safe  to  go,  and  where  his  chances  of  getting  into  trouble 
or  danger  are  above  the  average.  If  he  deliberately  goes 
into  dangerous  zones  he  is  partly  responsible  for  any  trouble 
he  may  get  into.  The  question  of  whether  Mexico  should 
be  in  perfect  order  is  quite  another  matter.  The  purpose 
of  these  statements  is  not  to  exonerate  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment of  its  responsibility  for  the  protection  of  the  lives  of 
foreigners,  nor  to  minimize  the  liability  of  the  American 
government  in  the  matter,  but  rather  to  present  the  facts 
as  they  are.  Whether  the  Mexican  government  is  doing  all 
that  could  be  done  to  pacify  the  country  thoroughly  and 
thereby  make  it  safe  for  foreigners  and  natives  alike  is  a 
matter  subject  to  discussion.  That  the  government  has 
done  much  in  this  direction  is  certain.  It  also  seems  certain 


RECONSTRUCTION   PROBLEMS   IN  MEXICO  115 

that  with  money  and  with  more  efficient  organization  paci- 
fication could  be  considerably  speeded  up.  The  question 
of  foreign  claims  for  loss  of  life  or  damage  to  property  during 
the  revolution  is  properly  one  for  mixed  claims  commissions. 
The  Mexican  government  some  months  ago  named  a  com- 
mission to  investigate  claims  and  make  awards.  Few  for- 
eign claims  have  been  filed  with  this  commission.  Alien 
claimants  naturally  do  not  want  to  submit  claims  to  a 
commission  named  by  the  government  against  which  the 
claims  are  made.  Doubtless  a  mixed  conmmission  will  soon 
be  formed  to  deal  with  the  question. 

With  the  exception  of  the  railway  investment  the  large 
units  of  capital  in  Mexico  suffered  comparatively  little 
damage  during  the  revolution.  Properties  of  the  large 
mining,  public  utility,  oil  and  industrial  companies  came 
through  with  little  or  no  physical  damage.  The  oil  com- 
panies have  prospered  throughout.  Many  other  properties 
suffered  through  loss  of  revenue  because  their  receipts  were 
depreciated  in  paper  money.  Others  were  obliged  to  shut 
down  at  tunes  because  of  demoralized  conditions.  The 
smaller  properties  fared  worse.  Many  ranches,  farms  and 
plantations  lost  heavily  through  raids,  cattle  and  livestock 
being  driven  off  and  everything  portable  being  carried  away. 
Many  small  mines,  located  in  remote  districts,  were  aban- 
doned by  their  owners.  Some  of  these  properties  have 
resumed  operations,  but  many  located  in  out-of-the-way 
places  are  still  closed  down.  The  railroads  suffered  very 
badly.  Stations  were  burned,  bridges  destroyed  and  rolling 
stock  wrecked.  For  a  long  tune  earnings  were  in  paper 
money  and  barely  sufficient  to  pay  running  expenses,  so 
that  there  was  heavy  depreciation  of  track  and  equipment. 
All  the  railways  are  four  or  five  years  in  arrears  on  bond 
interest.  The  situation  is  all  the  more  difficult  because 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  the  railway  companies  were  in 
a  weak  financial  position  before  the  revolution  broke  out. 
The  National  Railways  Company,  owning  two-thirds  of 
the  mileage  in  Mexico,  has  capital  liabilities,  bonds,  stock 
and  accrued  interest  amounting  to  $500,000,000,  with  gross 
earnings  of  only  $40,000,000.  The  highest  net  earnings 


116  E.   D.   TROWBRIDGE 

before  the  revolution  were  slightly  over  $10,000,000,  or  at  a 
rate  of  about  2  per  cent  on  the  present  capital  liability. 
The  complete  demoralization  during  the  upheaval  in  Mexico 
is  clearly  shown  by  the  fact  that  receipts  of  the  system, 
reduced  to  American  currency,  fell  from  an  average  of 
$2,500,000  to  less  than  $100,000  in  January,  1915.  The 
earnings  have  increased  very  rapidly  during  the  past  two 
years,  and  now  exceed  pre-revolution  figures.  Wages  and 
other  expenses  are,  however,  higher  than  formerly,  and  a 
deficit  is  certain  for  some  time. 

The  Mexican  government  is  in  arrears  on  the  national 
debt,  but  the  prospects  of  resumption  of  payments  are  good. 
The  total  national  debt,  including  accrued  interest  on  var- 
ious loans,  damages  payable  to  railways,  and  loans  from 
banks,  is  about  $500,000,000,  calling  roughly  for  $25,000,000 
of  interest  annually.  The  present  government  revenue  is 
at  a  rate  of  $90,000,000,  which,  were  it  not  for  heavy  ex- 
penses of  a  large  army  needed  to  restore  order,  would  be 
ample  to  cover  ordinary  expenses  and  interest  charges.  An 
increase  of  30  per  cent  in  income  will  put  the  government  in 
a  position  to  meet  all  its  obligations.  Naturally,  every 
property  placed  in  production  means  a  step  nearer  to  this 
position. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  a  situation  which  involved  so 
much  material  loss  for  so  many  people — owners  of  proper- 
ties or  holders  of  government,  railway  or  corporate  secu- 
rities, created  many  enmities.  Foreigners  in  Mexico, 
generally  speaking,  were  hostile  to  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment. With  the  improvement  hi  conditions  many  have 
modified  their  views,  but  then-  attitude  collectively  has  in  the 
past  been  such  as  to  increase  friction  in  international  rela- 
tions. Another  cause  for  friction  was  the  greatly  exagger- 
ated impression  held  by  Mexicans  as  to  the  amount  of  profits 
reaped  by  foreign  investments  in  Mexico.  A  single  case 
may  be  cited  on  this  point.  An  article  in  a  leading  American 
periodical  a  few  months  ago,  written  in  a  sympathetic 
spirit,  noted  incidentally,  and  as  evidence  of  good  conditions, 
that  one  silver  mine  is  shipping  $15,000,000  of  bullion 
monthly.  This  would  be  at  a  rate  of  $180,000,000  a  year, 


RECONSTRUCTION   PROBLEMS   IN   MEXICO  117 

when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Mexico's  total  silver  production 
this  year,  from  all  mines,  will  not  reach  $100,000,000. 

The  controversy  over  the  Mexican  oil  fields  is  a  compli- 
cated affair.  Foreign  interests  control  practically  all  the 
developed  territory.  The  rights  of  these  companies  to 
exploit  their  lands  are  quite  clear,  and  the  efforts  of  the 
Carranza  government  to  annul  such  rights  were  based,  not 
on  legal  grounds,  but  largely  on  questions  of  public  policy. 
The  Mexican  oil  fields  have  potential  possibilities  of  yielding 
a  billion  barrels  of  oil  annually,  an  amount  far  in  excess  of 
any  other  fields  in  the  world.  The  government  has  feared 
that  the  control  of  such  vast  resources  by  a  few  foreign 
companies  would  be  detrimental  to  national  interests,  and 
has  endeavored  to  curb  the  development  of  the  industry 
under  such  control.  It  seems  as  if  some  suitable  arrange- 
ment could  be  reached  by  which  the  companies  interested 
could  go  ahead  with  their  program  of  development,  the 
government  retaining  a  reasonable  control,  through  proper 
regulations,  of  the  industry.  Mexico  lacks  the  capital  to 
develop  her  natural  resources,  and  should  encourage  for- 
eign capital.  She  should,  however,  take  precautions  to 
prevent  such  capital  becoming  a  dominant  factor  in  her 
internal  affairs.  The  attitude  of  the  Mexican  government 
in  the  oil  controversy  has  been  a  narrow  one.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  collective  attitude  of  the  oil  interests  has  not 
been  one  calculated  to  assist  in  any  permanent  and  satis- 
factory settlement  of  the  question. 

Summarized,  the  immediate  problems  to  be  met  are: 

1.  Rehabilitation  of  railways. 

2.  Resumption  of  agricultural  activities. 

3.  Creation  of  a  banking  system. 

4.  Policing  of  rural  districts. 

5.  Securing  support  of  intelligent  people  of  all  factions. 

6.  Elimination  of  graft. 

7.  Reorganization  of  national  debt  on  basis  of  partial 
payment  of  interest,  with  full  payment  later. 

8.  Settlement  of  foreign  claims. 

9.  Settlement  of  oil  controversy. 

10.  Modification  of  certain  impractical  features  of  the 
Constitution. 


118  E.   D.   TROWBKIDGE 

11.  Restoration  of  full  civil  government  throughout  the 
country. 

12.  Efficient  reorganization  of  army. 

Co-incident  with  measures  to  meet  these  problems  the 
government  should  study  other  problems  of  great  import- 
ance. Of  these  the  most  important  are  the  extension  of 
popular  education,  the  creation  of  a  large  class  of  small 
land-owners,  the  extension  of  transportation  system  to 
assist  in  a  full  development  of  agricultural  and  other  re- 
sources, a  general  reform  in  the  system  of  taxation,  and  a 
reform  in  the  political  system  to  establish  the  beginning  of 
a  representative  form  of  government.  Much  has  been 
accomplished  in  ten  years  in  the  creation  of  public  opinion 
and  the  development  of  popular  thought.  Much  more  can 
be  accomplished  by  patriotic  and  sincere  effort  to  create  a 
stable  government.  If  all  interested  give  unselfish  devotion 
to  their  country  the  program  of  reconstruction  will  go  for- 
ward steadily  and  surely,  and  the  progress  will  leave  no 
excuse  for  any  outside  interference  hi  Mexico's  future. 


RECENT  CONDITIONS  IN  MEXICO 

By  Francis  R.  Taylor,  Chairman  of  the  Recent  Commission 
to  visit  Friends'  Missions  in  Mexico 

My  visit  to  Mexico  was  neither  long  enough  nor  extensive 
enough  to  qualify  me  for  an  opinion  upon  the  conditions 
throughout  the  entire  country,  but  only  upon  the  sections 
which  we  traversed.  Even  then  the  things  we  saw  for 
ourselves  and  the  information  we  received  constitutes, 
naturally,  the  chief  sources  of  the  conclusions  at  which 
we  arrived. 

My  companion,  Arthur  L.  Richie  and  I  were  sent  out  by  the 
American  Friends'  Service  Committee  to  visit  the  sections 
assigned  to  the  Society  of  Friends  for  mission  work  as  well 
as  the  Federal  District,  in  anticipation  of  opening  up  work 
in  Mexico  similar  to  that  about  concluded  in  the  stricken 
parts  of  Europe.  This  object  was  undertaken  entirely  in 
view  of  the  international  difficulties  existing.  It  is  of  a 
broader  and  more  temporary  nature  than  the  established 
form  of  missionary  endeavor,  particularly  in  the  number 
of  volunteer,  short-time  workers  that  are  used,  when  avail- 
able. The  Friends'  mission  work  is  confined,  under  the 
agreement  between  the  Evangelical  Churches,  to  the  state 
of  Tamaulipas,  and  small  portions  of  the  states  of  Nuevo 
Leon  and  San  Luis  Potosi.  Like  all  the  other  denomina- 
tions, the  Friends  do  not  at  all  adequately  cover  their  large 
extent  of  territory,  but  the  range  of  our  inquiry  took  us 
pretty  generally  over  this  section,  and  after  that,  by  the 
main  line  of  the  railroad,  to  the  capital  city,  through  the 
varying  and  interesting  states  between,  thence  returning 
via  Laredo.  What  I  shall  say,  therefore,  refers  to  that 
section  only,  except  in  those  instances  when  such  obser- 
vations may  be  presumed  to  be  typical  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole. 

119 


120  FRANCIS   R.    TAYLOR 

We  found  agriculture  in  all  stages  of  development — from 
the  primitive  ox-drawn,  wooden  plow,  shod  with  iron,  to 
the  highly  organized  sugar  or  citrus  plantation.  Back  of 
each  was  the  pitiable  lack  of  banking  facilities.  If  there 
is  any  one  boon  that  the  farming  population  of  Mexico 
needs,  it  is  the  bank,  more  for  deposit  and  savings  even 
than  for  credit,  desirable  and  essential  through  the  latter  is. 

We  had  entered  Mexico  with  the  preconception  that  the 
panacea  for  Mexico's  ills  lay  in  a  division  of  the  great  landed 
estates.  We  left  with  the  opinion  that  such  a  subdivision 
was  greatly  to  be  desired  but  that  the  peon  would  profit 
little  by  it  at  once.  So  great  is  the  gulf  between  the  classes 
and  so  remote  the  possibility  of  advance  from  the  peon 
class,  that  two  generations  of  education  in  thrift  and  ele- 
mentary economy  will  be  necessary  before  the  full  benefit 
of  the  division  can  be  expected  to  affect  the  peon  class  in 
any  but  an  incidental  way.  Even  from  that  standpoint, 
however,  the  effort  is  worth  while,  just  as  the  similar  process  is 
valuable  to  the  Indian  wards  of  the  United  States.  Smaller 
land  holdings,  once  achieved,  will  prove  hi  any  country 
an  incentive  to  the  sense  of  proprietorship  that  dwells  at 
the  root  of  thrift  and  national  wealth.  Moreover,  the 
economic  fitness,  sufficient  to  justify  peon  land  holding,  will 
be  developed,  hand  in  hand  with  the  increasing  possibility 
of  obtaining  the  land. 

Two  agricultural  enterprises,  now  past  the  experimental 
stages,  are  noteworthy  examples  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
country.  The  Friends'  Mission  at  Victoria,  Tamaulipas, 
operates  a  dairy  farm,  having  in  view  developing  it  into  an 
agricultural  school  later.  It  would  be  practically  impos- 
sible to  tram  Mexican  boys  in  this  school  as,  their  training 
complete,  there  would  be  no  prospect  for  independent  work. 
Small  though  his  equipment  would  be,  the  cost  of  it  would 
be  entirely  beyond  the  attainment  of  a  peon  youth,  even 
if  the  land  were  obtainable.  The  trinity  of  insurmountable 
obstacles,  facing  such  a  youth — no  land,  no  savings  and 
no  thrift,  surely  present  a  problem  of  vast  magnitude  and 
of  no  easy  solution.  In  the  meantime,  this  farm  is  serving 
its  very  useful  purpose  as  an  object  lesson.  In  spite  of 


RECENT   CONDITIONS   IN  MEXICO  121 

cattle  raids,  Mr.  Gulley,  a  young  Idaho  Quaker,  has  gathered 
together  a  small  herd  of  grade  cows  from  which  he  supplies 
milk  to  the  town.  So  superior  is  its  quality  that  he  cannot 
fill  the  demand  for  the  "mission  milk,"  and  the  old  distinc- 
tion between  "leche  con  agua"  and  "agua  con  leche," 
which  used  to  obtain  in  some  sections  of  the  country,  has 
disappeared,  and  that  too,  upon  a  profitable  basis.  It 
would  be  hard  to  overstate  the  possibilities  for  good,  inherent 
in  such  a  farm,  whether  as  an  object  lesson  alone  or  later 
as  a  training  school  for  the  youth  of  a  great  state. 

The  second  agricultural  enterprise,  typical  of  Mexico  at 
her  present  best,  was  the  vast  sugar  plantation  of  Foon 
Chuck,  near  Xicotencatl,  Tamaulipas.  It  was  an  inspira- 
tion to  see  the  manifest  hum  of  industry  evident  in  the 
cane  fields  and  sugar  mill  of  this  enlightened  and  enlighten- 
ing Chinese  gentleman.  To  irrigation  and  a  high  sense  of 
responsibility  for  his  laborers,  seems  to  be  due,  in  an  unusual 
degree,  the  air  of  solid  accomplishment  and  satisfied  con- 
tentment that  marks  his  hacienda  and  particularly  the 
village  of  "El  Canton." 

Foon  Chuck  is  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  Mexico's 
28,000  Chinese.  Beginning  life  in  humble  circumstances, 
he  is  an  outstanding  example  of  the  possibilities  in  Mexico, 
open  to  thrift  and  industry.  Like  many  of  his  countrymen 
he  married  a  Mexican  wife,  and  has  acquired  in  the  rearing 
of  his  large  family,  a  veritable  passion  for  the  education  of 
the  Mexicans.  Jn  "El  Canton"  he  has  a  school  for  the 
children  of  his  700  peons  and,  though  not  a  professing 
Christian,  is  willing  and  anxious  to  have  a  Christian  organi- 
zation open  up  work  on  his  hacienda. 

To  have  experienced  the  hospitality  of  this  remarkable 
little  man  and  to  learn  from  him  the  results  (or  rather  the 
lack  of  them)  of  his  efforts  on  behalf  of  his  peons,  was  an 
instructive  lesson  in  Mexican  traits  and  foibles.  Dressed 
in  a  soft  shirt,  a  brown,  broad-brimmed  felt  hat  and  knee 
boots  drawn  over  tight  khaki  trousers,  he  was  a  "typical" 
enough  planter  to  have  starred  for  a  movie  film.  Add  to 
these  the  pleasant  aroma  of  sugar  about  his  person  and 
you  can  picture  the  master  of  the  mill,  the  home,  and  the 
hacienda. 


122  FRANCIS   T.    TAYLOR 

Two  of  his  experiments,  long  ante-dating  the  numerous 
"crises"  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico,  are  full  of 
significance  for  the  ultimate  solution  of  their  fundamental 
difficulties. 

From  his  8500  acres,  Foon  Chuck  offered  any  of  his 
peons  an  acre  apiece,  for  their  own  cultivation,  in  beans  and 
corn,  as  a  side  issue  to  their  regular  work  on  the  hacienda. 
He  also  supplied  seed  and  provided  plowing  and  utensils 
for  cultivation.  All  went  well  till  the  crop  was  harvested 
and  then  never  a  stroke  of  work  did  those  peons  do  until 
the  supply  was  exhausted. 

Another  experiment  in  this  " welfare  work"  centered  in 
a  community  store,  at  which  Foon  Chuck  supplied  goods 
to  his  peons  at  about  two-thirds  cost.  Once  again  his 
altruistic  efforts  were  baffled  by  the  shiftlessness  of  his 
peons.  The  number  of  his  employees  greatly  increased, 
the  efficiency  of  the  force  greatly  decreased  and  the  business 
of  the  store  prospered  apace.  In  a  short  time  he  found  he 
had  twice  as  many  men  as  before,  each  doing  about  half 
tune  work  and  all  battening  on  the  low  prices  at  the  com- 
munity store. 

It  was  at  this  tune  that  Chuck  decided  upon  education 
as  the  real  and  only  solution  of  Mexico's  ills,  and,  since  most 
of  his  children  are  now  Christians,  he  inclines  of  late  to 
add  Christianity  as  a  determining  factor  in  the  issue. 

I  incline  also  to  mention  a  third  agricultural  enterprise, 
as  typical  of  the  best  of  another  kind  of  Mexican  country 
life.  Chuck's  hacienda  was  started  only  thirty  years  ago, 
but  another  large  hacienda,  on  the  outskirts  of  Mexico 
City,  dates  far  back  into  the  last  century  with  its  low, 
rambling  mansion  house,  fully  equipped  with  all  modern 
conveniences.  It  would  be  hard  to  overstate  the  delights 
of  this  cultured  home,  with  a  well  watered  patio,  redolent 
with  the  fragrance  of  roses  and  honey  suckle;  its  large 
grove  of  enormous  eucalyptus  trees,  its  gardens  and  shady 
walks  and  bowers.  Moreover  it  is  one  of  the  most  important 
of  the  city's  milk  supplies,  with  its  750  high  grade  Holstein 
cows  and  its  score  of  bulls,  many  of  both  entitled  to  registry, 
if  such  a  thing  were  known  in  Mexico. 


RECENT   CONDITIONS   IN  MEXICO  123 

Here  also  were  the  numerous  peons,  the  very  back  bone 
of  the  whole  enterprise,  and  yet  few  of  them  appeared  in 
any  way  entitled  to  registration  for  any  quality  other  than 
a  sort  of  unquestioning  and  aimless  fidelity  to  the  manual 
tasks  set  for  them  and  carried  out  by  means  of  them,  through 
the  superior  intelligence  of  an  efficient  Scotch-American 
manager.  In  our  delightful  visit  to  this  ancient  garden 
spot  of  Mexican  culture,  I  felt  unconsciously  brought  back 
into  the  heydey  of  a  Virginia  plantation,  of  the  days,  "before 
the  war."  Evidences  of  a  luxury  based  upon  an  abundance 
of  very  cheap,  and  consequently  inefficient  labor,  abounded. 
Tales  of  the  childish  dependence  and  shiftlessness,  the 
gullibility,  the  simplicity,  and  withal,  the  loveableness  of 
the  peons  and  their  families,  were  of  direct  kin  to  those 
known  to  us  in  the  stories  of  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  of  the 
plantation  negro. 

One  of  these  stories  is  worth  recording.  Our  visit  coin- 
cided with  the  day  of  Bonillas'  triumphal  entry  into  Mexico 
City,  returning  from  Washington  as  the  administration 
candidate  for  the  presidency.  Our  hosts  told  us  that 
seventy  of  their  peons  had  asked  and  received  leave  of 
absence,  the  day  before,  to  march  in  the  parade,  at  one 
peso  a  head.  Their  sense  of  importance,  in  this  national 
event,  had  been  vastly  increased  by  an  appreciation  in 
then-  value.  The  year  before,  they  had  only  been  "tostones" 
—at  a  toston,  or  half  a  peso  a  head;  but  this  year,  in  Bonil- 
las' ill-starred  behalf,  they  had  become  "pesones."  Imag- 
ine their  delight  and  the  consequent  inconvenience  on  the 
hacienda,  when  the  candidate's  arrival  was  delayed  a  day 
and  the  loyal  "pesones"  were  corralled  like  cattle,  in  the 
city,  for  delivery,  en  masse,  the  next  day  as  a  part  of  the 
vociferous,  enthusiastic  crowd,  acclaiming  the  hero,  who 
with  his  chief,  was  soon  to  be  driven  into  exile  by  the  next 
turn  of  the  political  wheel. 

In  all  of  these  agricultural  enterprises — the  Quaker  mis- 
sion farm,  the  Chinaman's  sugar  plantation  and  the  huge 
dairy  farm  of  the  Federal  District,  the  management  was 
solely  in  the  hands  of  foreigners  and  the  native  Mexican 
was  present  only  as  a  laborer  of  the  lowest  and  least  efficient 


124  FRANCIS   R.   TAYLOR 

kind.  There  are  great  Mexican  haciendas  under  native 
control,  like  those  of  the  Osima  brothers,  near  Foon  Chuck's, 
but  it  is  safe  to  state  that  even  on  these  the  peons  entirely 
lack  that  stimulus  of  possession,  for  which  they  are  not 
and,  without  years  of  preparation,  will  not  be  ready.  A 
few  years  ago  they  were  little  better  than  the  yokels  and 
knaves  of  old  England,  practically  a  part  of  and,  upon 
transfer,  passing  with  the  land.  Today  the  Mexican  peon 
has  in  a  real  sense  a  far  greater  degree  of  freedom  tlian  he 
had  before  the  recent  series  of  revolutions.  He  has  acquired 
the  desire  of  and  the  ability  to  travel.  If  the  campaigns 
of  the  past  decade  have  done  nothing  else,  they  have  stimu- 
lated and  to  a  degree  gratified  this  migrating  instinct. 
The  haciendados  already  complain  of  the  greater  independ- 
ence of  the  laboring  classes,  not  so  much  in  the  exorbitance 
of  their  wage  demands  as  in  the  ease  with  which  they  can 
travel,  family  and  all,  on  the  top  or  floor  of  a  box  car,  to 
another  section  in  search  of  employment.  Almost  inevit- 
ably this  migration  is  toward  the  North,  and  by  thousands 
they  have  crossed  the  Rio  Grande  into  the  United  States 
for  work  on  the  railroads  and  truck  farms  of  Texas  and  the 
middle  West. 

Migratory  or  roving  possibilities,  coupled  with  the  insta- 
bility due  to  lack  of  land  possession,  are  a  large  part  of  the 
unrest  in  Mexico  today.  The  joy  of  ownership  and  the 
inspiration  of  possession,  incident  to  the  modest  home  or 
small  farm  must  exist,  at  least  as  possibilities,  hi  any  nation 
that  is  to  preserve  its  identity  hi  the  world  of  today.  While 
therefore  the  agricultural  situation  in  Mexico  is  far  from 
the  ideal,  it  does  offer  possibilities  of  development  in  the 
future.  The  millions  of  acres  of  arable  land  in  Mexico 
that  await  only  the  magic  presence  of  irrigation  to  break 
forth  with  some  of  the  world's  choicest  products,  are  a 
vast  promise  of  untold  opportunity  to  the  peon.  Give  him 
education  in  thrift,  train  him  in  agriculture  and  grant  him 
fair  means  of  obtaining  his  parcel  of  land  with  equitable 
access  to  the  all  important  water  supply  and,  in  the  course 
of  years,  the  Mexican  problem,  like  all  others,  will  gradually 
rectify  itself. 


RECENT   CONDITIONS   IN   MEXICO  125 

Of  the  industries  of  Mexico  the  casual  visitor  sees  but 
little.  The  great  breweries  of  the  country  have  reaped 
rich  prospects  from  prohibition  in  the  United  States.  We 
heard  of  new  plants  being  established  by  moving  the  entire 
plant  from  the  states  to  one  or  another  of  the  thriving 
northern  cities  of  Mexico.  Certainly  the  border  towns  did 
a  thriving  business  in  dispensing  refreshment  to  the  parched 
Americans  who  thronged  them,  particularly  on  Sundays. 
Allied  to  these  are  the  pulque  distilleries,  as  much  of  a 
social  and  political  curse  as  were  the  whiskey  distilleries 
in  our  older  republic.  The  fermentation  of  the  juice  of  the 
magaya,  or  century  plant,  into  this  pulque  is  on  paper  as 
strictly  regulated  as  its  sale.  It  is,  however,  as  freely  made 
for  private  consumption  as  for  commercial  use  and  any 
attempt  to  discourage  it  strikes  at  an  important  activity 
of  innumerable  people  who  collect  the  juice  for  market. 

A  still  more  important  industry,  though  by  no  means  on 
a  factory  basis,  is  the  working  of  the  hennequin  fiber  into 
ropes,  bags,  brushes  and  mats.  The  hennequin  is  also  the 
source  of  practically  all  the  binder  twine  in  the  United 
States,  and  its  cultivation  is  one  of  the  most  important 
occupations  in  Mexico.  The  skill  and  deftness  which  many 
of  the  natives  acquire  in  working  upon  the  hennequin  fiber 
is  marvelous  to  those  whose  idea  of  industry  is  based  upon 
the  correlated  factory  systems  of  a  highly  specialized  com- 
munity. The  lack  of  machinery  and  the  dependence  upon 
simple  hand  looms  and  still  simpler  twisting  devices  places 
Mexico,  in  almost  all  parts,  in  the  class  of  undeveloped 
nations,  from  the  standpoint  of  specialized  industry.  The 
sole  exceptions  to  this  statement  are  the  considerable  wool 
weaving  industry  and  the  great  mining  and  smelting  oper- 
ations— the  former  being  largely  of  native  enterprise. 

The  railroads  of  the  country  gave  every  appearance  of 
improvement  over  what  must  have  been  the  condition  a 
short  time  ago.  In  the  railroad  yards  of  Monterrey  was 
enough  scrap  and  material  to  have  assembled  many  badly 
needed  locomotives.  On  the  side  lines  the  service  was 
farcical,  so  far  as  any  attempt  at  schedules  was  concerned. 
Engine  236  on  the  line  from  Matemoros  to  Monterrey  was 


126  FRANCIS   R.   TAYLOR 

a  bye-word,  we  found,  to  those  who  frequented  the  road 
and  the  sophisticated  would  wait  over  a  day  rather  than 
risk  the  imminent  delay  incident  to  its  use.  We  experienced 
its  vagaries  and  missed  a  night's  sleep,  due  to  some  stoppage 
in  the  smoke  flue  which  was  remedied  time  after  time,  by 
the  engineer  ramming  the  poker  down  the  smoke  stack 
while  the  fireman  worked  at  the  difficulty  in  the  roasting 
heat  of  the  open  boiler  head. 

Following  the  suit  of  the  United  States,  the  national 
government  had  taken  over  the  railways  and  formed  a 
national  system.  Rates  of  fare,  though  high,  compared 
favorably  per  mile  with  those  in  the  states,  and  in  time 
consumed  seemed  much  cheaper,  an  all  day  trip  costing 
very  little.  Upon  any  train  one  can  purchase  a  time  table 
covering  all  the  roads  in  the  country,  though  one  could 
never  be  certain  of  the  schedule  except  when  too  late  to 
meet  it.  On  the  line  from  Tampico  to  Monterrey  we 
experienced  a  bad  head-on  collision,  at  4  a.m.,  our  train 
being  long  overdue  and  having  gone  ahead  against  its 
signal.  The  telescoping  of  two  express  cars  and  the  envelop- 
ing of  the  two  engines  absorbed  the  shock  so  completely 
that  all  the  passengers  escaped  injury  and  the  engineers 
alone  were  hurt.  As  an  aftermath  to  the  nationalistic 
feeling  resulting  from  the  revolutions,  the  entire  personnel 
of  the  railroads  has  been  changed  to  Mexicans  alone.  The 
British,  who  used  to  predominate  in  the  management  of 
the  roads  have  entirely  disappeared  from  apparent  operation, 
whether  to  the  detriment  of  the  service  or  otherwise,  the 
casual  observer  cannot  say.  It  was  interesting  to  note, 
however,  that  the  only  trade  union  in  evidence  in  Mexico 
City  was  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers  whose 
elaborate  float  was  one  of  the  conspicuous  objects  in  the 
Bonillas  parade. 

For  the  main  line  of  railroad  from  Laredo  to  Mexico 
City,  a  two  days'  journey,  very  few  apologies  are  needed. 
Barring  the  slowness  of  the  schedule,  the  service  was  as 
complete  as  on  any  first  class  road  in  the  United  States. 
The  Pullman  porters,  both  Mexican  and  negro,  were  courte- 
ous and  efficient.  There  were  no  dining  cars  but  meals 


RECENT   CONDITIONS   IN   MEXICO  127 

were  served  from  buffet  broilers  in  entirely  satisfactory 
fashion. 

All  the  traffic,  however,  was  not  in  the  first  class  com- 
partments. Second  class  and  in  most  cases,  third  class 
accommodations,  were  in  more  demand  and  here  was  most 
evident  the  travelling  tendency,  already  mentioned.  Box 
cars,  fitted  with  rude  seats,  lengthwise,  served  for  the  vast 
majority  of  the  travelling  populace.  The  condition  of  these 
rough  coaches  after  a  day's  occupation  by  crowded  groups 
of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  is  more  esthetically  suggested 
than  described.  Food  for  these  itinerants  was  most 
abundantly  supplied  at  almost  every  station  by  swarms  of 
slovenly  women  or  decrepit  old  men  whose  Mexican  deli- 
cacies were  eagerly  bought  after  hurried  haggling  over 
prices.  These  steaming  concoctions  seemed  most  unsavory 
to  the  gentler  palates  of  the  uninitiated  and  we  went  for 
long  stretches  with  no  other  food  than  citrus  fruits,  hard 
boiled  eggs  or  similar  articles,  obtainable  in  their  original 
packages,  beyond  the  need  of  adaptation  by  human 
endeavor. 

Another  inevitable  accompaniment  of  these  train  loads, 
and  practically  the  only  apparent  evidence  of  disturbed 
conditions,  was  the  car  load  of  soldiers.  Sometimes  in 
wooden  box  cars,  again  in  specially  constructed  steel  cars 
with  elaborate  loop  holes  for  rifle  fire,  and  always  poorly 
accoutred  and  shabbily  clothed,  these  details  of  a  score  or 
so  of  soldiers,  gave  evidence  of  the  hand  of  the  government 
in  the  protection  of  the  traffic  and  the  travelling  public. 
Nor  were  they  entirely  for  effect.  In  Sonora,  where  Villa 
held  outlaw  sway,  a  train  was  captured,  the  crew  and  guard 
killed  and  the  passengers  robbed,  while  we  were  in  the 
country.  Near  Osorio,  in  Tamaulipas,  just  a  day  before 
we  happened  there,  a  small  band  of  raiders  had  been  beaten 
off  by  the  guard  without  loss  of  life  and  the  train  had  pro- 
ceeded. Without  knowledge  of  the  affair,  we  went  the  next 
day,  thirty  miles  back  into  the  country  from  the  railroad, 
in  a  dilapidated  Ford  car,  with  a  half  breed  chauffeur  and 
four  other  Mexicans,  to  visit  Foon  Chuck,  as  already  related. 
Though  our  journey  was  necessarily  at  night  and  with  no 


128  FRANCIS   R.    TAYLOR 

other  light  than  matches,  on  a  tortuous  road,  full  of  bumps 
and  ditches,  we  felt  slight  apprehension.  Surely  no  metro- 
politan chauffeur  could  have  handled  a  car  more  deftly 
than  did  that  Mexican,  and  just  as  surely,  no  better  chance 
ever  offered  to  rob  two  unwary  Americans.  If  the  states 
produced  any  taxi-drivers  as  courteous  as  our  half-breed, 
it  would  be  a  pleasing  discovery  to  find  them. 

In  currency,  credits  and  banks,  our  sister  republic  finds 
her  real  weakness,  which  underlies  and  is  at  one  and  the 
same  tune  the  cause  and  effect  of  much  of  her  business 
inefficiency.  Near  the  border,  United  States  currency  is 
gladly  circulated  and  is  in  fact  more  in  evidence  than  the 
native.  United  States  gold  coins  pass  current  throughout 
the  country,  as  readily  as  the  Mexican  "azteca"  a  twenty 
peso  piece,  and  the  most  beautiful  coin  I  have  ever  seen. 
In  central  Mexico,  the  smaller  United  States  coins  are  not 
accepted,  and  under  the  Carranza  regime,  the  government 
issued  "vales,"  paper  money,  of  fifty  centavos  and  one 
peso  in  value,  and  reputed  to  be  upon  an  entire  gold  basis. 
Certain  it  is  that  they  were  very  well  received  in  the  Federal 
District  and,  hi  sooth,  change  making  without  them  was 
well  nigh  impossible.  Frequently  it  was  necessary  to  take 
postage  stamps  and  street  car  tickets  as  change,  due  to  the 
great  scarcity  of  the  small  silver  and  copper  coins. 

In  none  but  the  largest  towns  were  there  any  banks. 
Victoria,  the  capital  of  Tamaulipas  and  a  city  of  18,000 
inhabitants  had  no  banking  facilities  at  all.  In  Monterrey 
there  were  several  excellent  banks,  of  modern  and  attractive 
appearance,  equipped  for  English  speaking  business,  and 
in  general,  most  efficient  in  handling  foreign  credits.  They 
appeared  even  more  efficient  than  the  greater  banks  in 
Mexico  City.  The  latter  were  practically  all  branches  of 
German  or  Canadian  Banks,  but  business  was  not  so  press- 
ing but  that  it  could  all  be  transacted  in  the  three  hours 
daily  during  which  alone  the  institutions  are  open.  Loans 
from  these  banks  were  restricted  to  the  very  smallest  sums 
possible,  checks  were  practically  not  used  at  all  and  the 
dealings  of  the  large  commercial  houses  were  transacted 
almost  entirely  in  actual  exchange  of  gold. 


RECENT  CONDITIONS   IN   MEXICO  129 

Turning  to  the  educational  opportunities  of  the  country, 
one  is  at  a  loss  to  describe  the  pitiable  inadequacy  of  it  all. 
To  those  of  us  whose  heritage  includes,  indeed  prescribes, 
educational  possibilities  beyond  the  ken  of  the  Mexican 
youth,  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  sufficiently  accurate  parallel 
to  convey  a  correct  impression.  A  school  system  there  is, 
but  it  rarely  leads  beyond  the  sixth  grade.  The  schools  are 
usually  held  hi  the  houses  of  typical  Mexican  architecture, 
built  directly  on  the  street,  of  thick  walls  to  withstand  the 
heat  at  mid-day,  with  few  windows  and  little  ventilation. 
The  lack  of  school  equipment  is  the  most  noticeable  short- 
coming. Most  of  the  government  schools  have  the  anti- 
quated desks,  discarded  in  the  states  since  the  '80s.  Paper 
and  pencils  are  at  a  premium  and  in  many  of  the  schools 
slates  were  in  evidence,  with  pencils  carved  from  the  lime- 
stone rocks  near  the  village.  In  the  city  of  Victoria,  a 
large  city  school  existed,  better  than  anything  we  saw  even 
in  Mexico  City.  The  Victoria  school  was  of  recent  con- 
struction, with  a  large  cinder  paved  patio  which  served  as 
an  athletic  ground.  The  two  great  schools  or  preparatorios 
of  Mexico  City  were  distinctly  creditable  to  the  country, 
leading  to  a  point  about  one  year  under  graduation  from 
our  high  schools.  The  University  of  Mexico  covers  about 
to  the  end  of  our  second  collegiate  year  and  has  suffered 
much  from  the  revolution.  Even  at  its  best,  it  would  not 
be  considered  of  collegiate  grade  in  the  Eastern  United 
States. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  primary  and  grade  schools  that  one 
may  judge  most  accurately  of  the  life  of  the  nation.  Great 
areas  of  the  country  are  entirely  unschooled.  No  such 
institution  as  "the  little  red  school  house"  exists  and  the 
inefficiency  and  inadequacy  of  the  government  schools  are 
the  more  reflected  by  comparison  with  the  mission  schools, 
which  in  turn  impress  the  visitor  with  a  sinking  feeling 
when  one  compares  them  with  the  schools  in  the  United 
States.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  for  the  vast  majority  of 
Mexican  children,  school  possibilities  simply  do  not  exist, 
and  where  they  do  exist,  they  are  of  so  simple  and  ele- 
mentary a  character  as  to  require  years  of  consistent, 


130  FRANCIS   R.   TAYLOR 

uninterrupted  effort  to  bring  them  into  anything  like  a 
real  school  system. 

Local  taxes  and  local  government  are  in  Mexico  as  in  the 
states  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  school  system.  We 
were  informed  that  subsidies  from  the  federal  government 
had  been  cut  off  from  the  local  schools,  they  being  thrown 
entirely  upon  the  resources  of  the  states,  and  that  graft 
was  so  rampant  in  the  state  government  that  many  of  the 
government  schools  were  being  closed.  The  one  bright 
feature  of  Mexican  education  is  the  presence  and  idealism 
of  a  large  body  of  educators,  mostly  men,  but  including  a 
few  women,  trained  in  the  colleges  of  the  United  States,  and 
earnestly  endeavoring  to  keep  themselves  free  from  partisan 
politics.  In  the  hands  of  these  and  the  foreign  missionaries 
rests  the  future  of  Mexican  education,  and  that  future  is 
brighter  than  the  present  material  situation  would  indicate. 

I  have  outlined  these  features  of  Mexican  life,  fragmentary 
though  our  observation  of  them  necessarily  was,  simply  to 
indicate  how  pitiful  is  the  situation  of  Mexico  today.  It 
is  a  situation  which  the  United  States,  by  reason  of  the 
admitted  special  interests  of  many  of  her  business  men, 
particularly  of  her  oil  companies,  neither  can  nor  ought  to 
work  out  alone.  It  is  one  of  an  essentially  international 
character  in  which  the  stable  republics  of  South  America 
must,  of  necessity,  be  called  upon  to  aid  us.  A  policy  of 
military  intervention,  with  all  the  suffering  it  would  entail 
upon  both  sides  of  the  Rio  Grande,  would  be  absolute  folly. 
A  policy  of  international  penetration  for  the  right  definition 
and  enforcement  of  the  international  obligations  which  the 
Mexican  government  has  in  all  too  many  instances  openly 
flouted,  is  the  only  one  that  can  possibly  lead  to  a  definite 
solution  of  the  problem.  Together  with  this,  must  be 
assumed  an  attitude  of  ignoring  in  Mexico,  as  we  do  in 
other  countries,  cases  of  individual  outrages  and  murder 
with  which  the  Mexican  government  itself  not  only  has 
nothing  to  do,  but  which  are  directly  in  contravention  of 
its  policy  and  efforts.  American  citizens  should  remember 
that  the  American  public  never  heard  of  Mexican  outrages 
until  comparatively  recent  times,  although  they  existed  in 


RECENT  CONDITIONS   IN   MEXICO  131 

the  past  in  greater  number  than  they  have  recently.  It  has 
been  the  increasing  importance  of  American  investments  in 
Mexico  in  the  past  two  decades  that  have  brought  her  laxity 
in  law  enforcement  pointedly  before  the  American  public. 
Even  now  one  can  truthfully  state  that  the  situation  is  no 
worse  than  it  was  on  our  own  frontier  in  California  and 
Alaska,  in  the  days  of  the  gold  rushes,  and  also  that  the 
murders  and  outrages  in  Mexico  since  1910  have  not  equaled 
in  number  the  accidental  deaths  in  the  coal  mines  of  the 
eastern  United  States,  where  unimportant  and  unknown 
miners  died  unheard  of  and  unheeded  by  the  same  American 
public  that  responds  so  sensitively  to  Mexican  outrages. 

The  Mexican  problem  is  one  that  will  not  be  solved  in 
a  decade  nor  in  a  generation.  Its  solution  lies  in  a  process 
far  more  fundamental  and  far  more  tedious  than  anything 
that  has  yet  come  to  the  surface  in  the  recommendations 
and  findings  of  the  Fall  Committee.  It  is  one  that  must 
emanate  from  the  hearts  and  brains  of  the  peoples  of  two 
Americas,  rather  than  through  the  might  and  force  of  our 
nation  or  of  any  other.  It  involves  fundamental  reform 
and  elementary  education  in  Mexico.  It  involves  a  vast 
unselfish  and  somewhat  costly  educational  process  either 
by  the  United  States  government  or  by  the  Christian 
churches  in  the  United  States.  I  have  no  doubt  whatever 
that  Mexico  could  be  subjugated  by  force  of  arms,  but  I 
rather  entertain  the  vision  of  a  vast  host  of  the  youth  of 
America  called  to  a  higher  standard  than  that  of  our  war 
eagles,  a  standard  of  a  peaceful  mission  to  our  neighbor 
in  the  south,  a  mission  similar  to  that  which,  during  my  own 
college  days,  the  youth  were  called  upon  to  assume  in  the 
education  of  the  Filipinos.  We  found  difficulty  in  sub- 
jugating the  natives  of  those  Islands  and  after  conquering 
them  were  forced  to  justify  this  by  educating  them.  If 
there  is  one  thing  of  which  my  observation  in  Mexico 
convinced  me,  it  is  that  the  education  and  development  of 
Mexico  is  possible  without  a  preliminary  armed  conquest 
and  that  the  idealism  of  the  young  manhood  and  woman- 
hood of  America  simply  awaits  the  proper  call  from  our 
government  or  our  churches  to  fulfill  the  possibilities  of 
which  it  is  inherent. 


MEXICO  AND  THE  PRESENT  REVOLUTION 

By  John  Vavasour  Noel,  President  of  the  Noel  News  Service 

In  discussing  the  frequent  revolutionary  movements  in 
Hispanic  America  it  is  incumbent  upon  us,  before  passing 
judgment  on  them,  to  consider  the  history  of  their  peoples 
and  their  racial  and  social  components. 

The  Spanish  settlement  of  a  great  portion  of  the  New 
Hemisphere  was  truly  a  conquest,  and  as  such  it  is  generally 
known;  differing  essentially  as  to  its  purpbses  and  character 
from  the  establishment  of  civilization  in  our  own  country. 
In  one  case  gold  was  the  objective,  in  the  other  religious 
freedom  and  liberty  were  the  chief  impulses.  While  it  is 
true  that  we  warred  with  the  Indians  and  drove  them  from 
then*  lands  we  did  not  enslave  millions  of  meek  and  submis- 
sive natives,  nor  cause  then*  extermination  under  inhuman 
treatment  on  lands  or  in  mines,  nor  utilizing  them  as  tools 
to  secure  wealth  for  ourselves  or  for  greedy  monarchs  at 
home. 

Spanish  civilization,  as  implanted  hi  this  hemisphere,  was 
not  without  its  virtues  and  has  its  defenders  because  of  the 
civilizing  influence  of  some  of  the  religious  orders  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  One  cannot  however  escape  the  funda- 
mental truth  that,  in  the  name  of  the  king  and  under  the 
cloak  of  religion,  territories  were  dominated  by  force,  their 
peoples  enslaved  and  then*  lands  and  wealth  taken  from 
them.  With  it  there  was  no  idealistic  thought,  no  message 
of  a  new  world  to  be  founded. 

I  emphasize  these  well-known  facts  hi  order  that  you  may 
realize  that  force  and  autocracy  dominated  in  Hispanic 
America  from  the  moment  daring  and  unscrupulous  soldiers 
of  fortune  planted  the  flag  of  Castilla  and  Leon  on  discovered 
land. 

Then  came  the  adventurers  of  Spam,  later  the  viceroys 
and  numerous  officials  and  with  them  traders  and  others. 

132 


MEXICO   AND   THE    PRESENT  REVOLUTION  133 

Their  aim  was  to  exploit  the  natives,  and  thus  a  dominating 
caste  composed  of  whites  and  half  breeds  was  in  control, 
the  latter  chiefly  caused  by  Spain's  unwillingness  to  allow 
the  women  to  join  their  men  hi  the  new  world.  Under  royal 
grants  and  by  other  means  vast  estates  were  founded,  prin- 
cipalities in  fact,  owned  by  one  family,  constituting  in  tune 
with  others  the  oligarchies  which  even  today  exist  in  many 
of  the  republics  of  Hispanic  America. 

In  the  course  of  years  self  dependence  developed  in  those 
lands.  The  French  revolution  and  our  own,  as  well  as  the 
tendency  of  the  tunes,  were  causes  that  led  them  to  revolt 
from  the  mother  country.  But  changed  political  condi- 
tions meant  to  the  masses  of  Indians  only  a  change  of  mas- 
ters, who  fought  among  themselves  for  power,  which  meant 
the  presidency  of  the  republic. 

There  was  no  political  education  possible  under  such  cir- 
cumstances and  no  evolution  as  in  other  lands,  which  have 
all  had  then-  bloody  struggles  before  public  opinion  was  suf- 
ficiently enlightened  to  use  the  present  day  means  of  the 
ballot,  often  with  chicanery  and  gold  as  the  corrupting  influ- 
ences, instead  of  bullets. 

The  fair-minded  individual  will  admit  that  the  series  of 
constant  revolts  all  over  Hispanic  America  were  thus  inev- 
itable. Force  was  the  only  possible  weapon.  Some  of  the 
republics  however  have  today  progressed  sufficiently  to  seek 
recourse  in  arms  only  as  a  last  resort  where  some  great 
principle  is  involved. 

Mexico,  concerning  which  I  desire  to  make  a  plea  for  a 
more  generous  understanding  of  its  problems,  as  history 
tells  us,  did  not  escape  the  common  fate  which  I  have 
described.  I  can  find  no  better  words  than  those  of  General 
Salvador  Alvarado,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  present  move- 
ment, and  who  is  likely  to  be  known  in  the  future  as  its 
historian,  who  in  a  recent  statement  addressed  to  the 
American  people  said: 

In  the  first  place  one  should  take  into  consideration  the  com- 
position of  our  society  when  we  gained  our  independence  in  1821. 
It  consisted  of  seven  millions  and  a  half  of  pure  Indians  and  of 
mixed  blood,  belonging  to  the  lower  class,  together  with  half  a 


134  JOHN   VAVASOUR  NOEL 

million  Spaniards  and  half-breeds,  constituting  the  dominant 
class.  This  half  million  was  made  up  of  land  and  mine  owners, 
merchants,  clergymen,  military  men,  lawyers  and  politicians. 
This  class  was  conservative,  obstructive  and  the  enemy  of  all 
progress.  The  progressive  elements  of  the  country  had  not  been 
able  to  freely  develop  their  tendencies,  and  progress  had  to  be 
made  by  constant  struggles  and  clashes.  With  such  a  dispropor- 
tionate social  composition,  the  gradual  social  evolution  was  not 
possible  with  harmony  among  the  different  classes  and  their 
tendencies,  because  since  their  birth  they  brought  as  an  original 
vice  a  great  lack  of  equilibrium.  That  was  the  reason  for  the 
continuous  wars  of  our  early  life;  wars  culminating  in  our  War  of 
Reform,  1855  to  1860.  These  retarding  elements  having  been 
vanquished,  resorted  to  intrigues  abroad,  to  bring  about  French 
intervention  in  1862,  which  ended  in  1867  with  the  withdrawal 
of  the  French  troops  and  Maximilian's  execution. 

After  a  few  years  came  Diaz,  courageous,  cunning  and 
daring.  He  won  on  a  no  reelection  platform  and  then 
perpetuated  himself  in  power  for  thirty  years.  He  governed 
as  an  autocrat,  gave  material  progress  to  the  privileged  caste 
and  to  a  small  middle  class.  His  record  shows  no  great 
constructive  work  for  the  masses. 

He  encouraged  arts  and  letters  and  sought  the  help  of 
foreign  capital,  surrounding  himself  with  able  men,  natives 
and  foreigners,  but  he  brooked  no  rivals  and  put  down  with 
an  iron  hand  any  opposition  to  his  will  or  any  attempt  at 
individual  expression. 

A  social  conscience,  as  we  understand  it,  was  hardly  to  be 
expected  of  him,  but  I  freely  give  him  credit  for  having  acted 
according  to  the  best  tenets  of  his  times.  It  was  my  privi- 
lege to  meet  him  and  talk  with  him  about  his  people  and  the 
problems  of  the  day.  He  believed  in  paternalism  and  he 
thought  that  education  and  work  for  the  masses  would  solve 
all  problems.  He  sat  on  the  lid  of  all  political  and  social 
evolution,  and  in  his  later  years,  was  surrounded  by  a  group 
of  self-seekers  who,  in  alliance  with  foreign  capitalists, 
sought  to  benefit  personally  by  Mexico's  great  natural 
wealth. 

Then  came  the  storm.  Powerful  social  forces  long  held 
in  check,  blew  up  the  lid.  Chaos  has  reigned  for  ten  years, 
a  long  period  indeed  in  a  sense,  but  a  brief  one  in  the  devel- 
opment of  a  nation.  Madero  came  and  for  a  time  con- 


MEXICO   AND   THE   PRESENT  REVOLUTION  135 

quered,  suffering  a  martyr's  death.     His  principles  live  today 
and  his  disciples  are  continuing  his  pioneer  work. 

Carranza  and  Villa  followed  him  and  both  have  contrib- 
uted toward  Mexico's  social  progress.  They  have  made 
fatal  mistakes  which  led  to  the  death  of  the  first  and  the 
probable  elimination  of  the  second. 

Carranza's  contribution  toward  Mexico's  regeneration 
cannot  be  ignored  and  time  only  will  give  it  proper  value. 
He  loved  his  people  and  was  devotedly  followed  by  the 
younger  and  more  progressive  Mexicans  of  all  classes  until 
he  failed  to  carry  out  the  fundamental  aims  of  the  revolu- 
tion; established  a  one-man  government  and  allowed  him- 
self to  be  surrounded,  as  Diaz  did,  by  a  designing  clique, 
which,  with  his  dogmatism,  his  exaggerated  nationalism  and 
his  efforts  to  have  a  civilian  elected  as  his  successor,  were 
the  causes  of  his  downfall.  He  was  the  strong  man  needed 
to  coordinate  the  forces  of  the  revolution  after  Madero's 
death.  His  dominant  will,  his  stubborn  courage  and 
patience  were  required  in  those  days.  He  succeeded  and 
I  believe  his  countrymen  will  accord  him  a  place  in  their 
hearts  and  remember  his  deeds  more  than  his  mistakes.  He 
led  his  people  from  one  mile-stone  of  progress  to  another 
and  lost  his  life  because  of  the  very  qualities  which  to  them 
were  useful  during  the  days  he  led  to  victory. 

Villa  is  a  complex  character.  He  has  also  contributed 
his  share  toward  the  regeneration  of  his  country  and  toward 
social  progress  when  he  fought  for  the  great  principles  of 
the  revolution,  before  his  break  with  Carranza  and  his 
acts  of  banditry.  The  real  story  of  his  part  in  Mexican 
affairs  has  not  been  told.  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  many  of 
the  tales  about  him  and  I  know  that,  misguided  as  his 
methods  are,  there  is  a  real  love  for  his  people  in  his  heart. 
His  hand  is  against  society  because  of  the  oppressions  and 
cruelties  practised  by  the  privileged  caste  toward  him  and 
his  fellows. 

The  present  successful  revolutionary  movement  in  Mex- 
ico had  its  origin  in  the  realization,  a  conclusion  reached 
with  regret,  by  a  great  number  of  the  followers  of  Carranza 
that  he  had,  as  they  put  it,  betrayed  the  revolution. 


136  JOHN   VAVASOUR   NOEL 

They  felt  that  their  struggles  and  sacrifices  and  the  thou- 
sands of  lives  lost,  had  brought  so  far  a  change  in  men  and 
not  in  methods;  that  the  same  centralized  autocratic  power 
existed  as  in  the  time  of  Diaz  and  that  no  real  effort  was 
being  made  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  masses.  Their 
belief  that  Carranza  intended  to  perpetuate  himself  in 
power  by  having  a  dummy  candidate  elected  was  the  cause 
for  immediate  action. 

The  responsibility  lies  with  a  group  of  men  chiefly  from 
Sonora,  a  virile  state,  led  by  Obregon. 

He  and  other  loyal  supporters  of  the  basic  principles  of 
the  Madero  revolt,  and  later  followers  of  Carranza,  held  a 
number  of  meetings  and  on  April  23,  1920,  subscribed  to  a 
document  known  as  the  Agua  Prieta  Plan. 

This  now  historic  proclamation  is  a  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples and  outlines  "an  organic  plan  for  democracy,  law 
and  order."  Its  preamble  contains  a  declaration  to  the  effect 
that  the  sovereignty  resides  in  the  people  and  charges  Car- 
ranza with  its  violation;  that  having  exhausted  all  peaceful 
means  to  convince  the  chief  executive  of  his  errors,  he  is 
charged  with  treason  to  the  fundamental  aims  of  the  Con- 
stitutionalist revolution.  In  consequence  it  is  time  for 
the  people  of  Mexico  to  assume  its  sovereignty. 

The  organic  plan  demands  the  relinquishment  of  power 
by  Carranza,  repudiates  certain  public  officials,  sustains 
others  and  provides  that  Adolfo  De  la  Huerta,  the  governor 
of  Sonora,  shall  be  supreme  commander  and  that  a  pro- 
visional presidency  shall  be  established  until  elections  may 
be  held.  It  also  adopts  the  constitution  of  February  5, 
1917,  as  the  fundamental  law  of  the  Republic. 

This  plan  was  made  public  when  Carranza  forces  threat- 
ened Sonora,  and  met  with  immediate  and,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  a  general  response  among  all  those  who  had 
fought  with  Carranza  for  the  great  principles  now  again 
declared  in  the  Agua  Prieta  plan.  A  bloodless  and  victori- 
ous revolution,  unquestionably  supported  by  public  opinion, 
took  place  within  a  month. 

What  the  future  will  bring  forth  is  difficult  of  prophesy. 
Judging  however  from  immediate  results  and  with  a  knowl- 


MEXICO  AND   THE   PRESENT  REVOLUTION  137 

edge  of  the  leaders  of  the  movement,  friends  of  Mexico  ask 
for  a  fair  deal,  for  a  reasonable  understanding,  and  for 
patience. 

To  again  quote  Alvarado: 

We,  Mexicans  of  today,  through  our  progressive  young  men, 
do  not  ask  more  of  the  world  than  a  little  patience  and  a  little 
faith  in  our  ability  to  solve  our  problems  and  arrange  our  affairs. 
We  can  thus  speak,  because  we  are  sure  of  the  great  political 
progress  we  have  made  in  these  nine  years  of  struggle,  and  we 
feel  doubly  sure  of  it,  on  account  of  the  powerful  and  irresistible 
current  of  opinion  existing  in  Mexico  today  for  peace,  opportu- 
nity and  reconstruction,  We  do  not  deceive  ourselves,  as  every 
observer  that  goes  to  Mexico  will  note  on  every  side  eagerness  for 
tranquillity  and  peace,  and  a  strong  and  well-defined  social 
conscience  which  demands  a  rapid  reorganization  of  our  public 
life. 

Have  faith  in  our  sincerity  and  in  our  latent  power  and  you 
will  not  regret  it. 

The  searchlight  of  public  inquiry  is  now  directed  on  the 
men  responsible  for  this  revolutionary  movement. 

Among  them  Obregon  stands  as  the  central  figure  and 
after  him  De  la  Huerta,  Alvarado,  Calles,  Benjamin  Hill 
and  a  host  of  other  progressive  Mexicans. 

I  am  convinced  from  my  personal  acquaintance  with  them 
and  because  of  some  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  His- 
panic Americans,  gained  by  years  of  residence  among  them, 
of  the  sincerity  and  the  necessary  qualities  of  leadership  of 
Obregon,  De  la  Huerta  and  Alvarado.  They  are  remarka- 
bly of  the  same  mind  in  their  intense  purpose  to  regenerate 
their  people.  Whatever  extreme  or  so-called  radical  views 
some  of  them  may  have  had,  the  possession  of  power  and 
responsibility  will  broaden  their  viewpoint.  They  will 
come  in  contact  with  many  forces  and  will  undoubtedly  be 
content  to  labor  slowly  but  consistently  in  their  avowed 
purposes  of  social  regeneration. 

Obregon  makes  the  more  spectacular  appeal  on  account 
of  his  brilliant  military  record.  His  courage,  independence 
and  versatility,  and  his  ability  to  organize  the  present  move- 
ment are  desirable  qualities  for  an  administrator.  Lovers 
of  Mexico  hope  that  he  will  surround  himself  with  able  and 
honest  men,  irrespective  of  party,  and  adopt  a  conciliatory 


138  JOHN  VAVASOUR   NOEL 

policy  toward  all  those  who  desire  to  help  in  the  work  of 
reconstruction. 

De  la  Huerta,  whom  I  knew  quite  well  when  he  was  consul 
general  in  New  York,  is  one  of  the  most  capable  and  modest 
men  I  have  ever  met.  Essentially  democratic,  he  dislikes 
all  pomp  and  show  and  goes  to  the  root  of  all  issues,  without 
preamble.  He  is  one  of  the  few  men  who  have  been  able 
to  befriend  the  Yaqui  Indians,  among  whom  he  is  an  hon- 
orary chief.  As  governor  of  Sonora,  serving  two  terms,  his 
was  a  remarkable  record  of  constructive  achievement.  As 
provisional  president  he  will  govern  with  moderation. 
After  the  elections  for  a  new  chief  executive  I  know  that 
his  influence  will  be  always  for  the  under  dog,  the  Mexican 
peon. 

Alvarado  became  an  international  figure  some  years  ago 
when  he  successfully  executed  a  series  of  notable  reforms  as 
governor  of  Yucatan.  All  the  forces  of  reaction  and  priv- 
ilege, not  only  in  his  state  but  in  this  country,  were  aligned 
against  him  because  he  collected  just  taxes,  improved  the 
conditions  of  the  peon  and  by  a  cooperative  commission 
regulated  the  price  of  sisal  hemp  and  brought  prosperity 
to  the  land  by  distributing  its  wealth  more  equitably.  As 
one  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  new  movement  and  its  spoke- 
man  in  this  country  he  has  a  brilliant  career  before  him  in 
the  service  of  Mexico. 

Alvarado  visited  this  country  last  February  when  it  was 
my  good  fortune  to  meet  him.  I  have  a  high  regard  for 
his  dynamic  personality,  his  sterling  qualities  and  his  abso- 
lute honesty.  After  handling  millions  in  Yucatan,  when 
Carranza,  out  of  jealousy  removed  him,  he  had  not  enough 
money  to  pay  his  hotel  bill  on  his  return  to  Mexico  City. 
During  his  temporary  eclipse  from  public  life  he  wrote  a 
remarkable  work  entitled  The  Reconstruction  of  Mexico, 
which  is  soon  to  be  translated  into  English  and  which  I 
commend  to  students  of  the  social  and  economic  problems 
of  that  country. 

So  much  for  the  past.  We  now  face  the  future.  The 
question  before  us  is :  Will  Mexico  continue  to  be  the  battle 
ground  of  conflicting  military  groups  or  are  the  new  and 
progressive  forces  strong  enough  to  suppress  them? 


MEXICO   AND   THE   PRESENT  REVOLUTION  139 

Experience  shows  us  that  in  social  changes  two  factors 
are  essential  to  stabilize  and  bring  to  fruition  such  upheav- 
als. One  is  force  used  to  hold  in  check  conspiracy  and  the 
second  is  the  support  of  public  opinion.  In  the  case  of 
Mexico  the  leaders  are  men  of  action  and  determination. 
Obregon,  their  leader,  is  unquestionably  Mexico's  greatest 
military  genius  and  the  idol  of  the  soldiers.  As  to  the  sec- 
ond requisite  the  astonishing  success  of  the  present  revolu- 
tionary movement  would  seem  to  indicate  that  public 
opinion  did  support  it;  there  is  ample  evidence  of  a  great 
longing  for  peace  and  the  reestablishment  of  normal  condi- 
tions among  all  classes. 

We  can  help  our  southern  brothers  by  adopting  a  sympa- 
thetic attitude  and  refuse  to  be  influenced  by  sensational 
news  wired  by  newspapermen  who  make  their  living  by  in- 
venting thrillers,  or  maliciously  circulated  by  those  who  are 
interested  in  keeping  alive  distrust  of  Mexico  in  order  to 
benefit  materially.  We  must  not  let  those  who  would  pos- 
sess the  oil  or  any  other  source  of  Mexico's  wealth  force 
our  government  to  adopt  coercive  methods  toward  a  weaker 
nation. 

The  new  group  has  declared  its  intention  to  give  a  liberal 
interpretation  to  article  27  of  the  Constitution  of  1917 
dealing  with  the  vexing  oil  problem;  to  welcome  foreign  capi- 
tal under  equitable  conditions  and  give  it  fair  treatment 
and  to  gradually,  repay  all  foreign  loans. 

Is  our  attitude  toward  Mexico  to  be  determined  by  covet- 
ousness  and  greed,  thus  placing  us  before  the  Hispanic 
American  world  in  the  light  in  which  some  of  their  Yankee- 
phobe  demagogues  portray  us  or  shall  we  extend  the  hand 
of  fellowship  to  a  struggling  nation  and  show  the  world 
that  we  have  ideals  beyond  material  things? 

I  prophesy  success  for  this  splendid  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  younger  and  more  progressive  element  of  Mexico,  but 
I  foresee  that  they  will  need  the  courageous  help  of  all  lib- 
eral forces  in  this  country.  Unless  the  new  government 
can  with  dignity  reach  a  fair  settlement  of  the  oil  problem 
and  meet  the  demands  of  other  money  interests  a  campaign 
of  vilification  and  slander  may  take  place  at  any  moment. 


140  JOHN  VAVASOUR  NOEL 

Then  we  must  act  promptly  and  use  all  means  at  our  com- 
mand to  prevent  the  crime  of  intervention.  There  may 
not  always  be  a  Wilson  to  prevent  it. 

Have  we  not  sufficient  evidence  of  the  futility  of  inter- 
vention by  force  of  arms  in  the  internal  affairs  of  other 
nations?  Has  not  the  Great  War  taught  us  something  in 
that  respect?  Force,  though  necessary  and  unavoidable 
at  tunes,  brings  its  own  reaction.  If  we  attempt  to  dictate 
to  Mexico  concerning  its  laws,  to  take  sides  in  its  internal 
quarrels  in  order  to  gain  material  advantages,  we  shall  only 
strengthen  their  nationalism  and  lose  not  only  their  good 
will  but  that  of  Hispanic  America. 

Let  us  be  patient,  tolerant  and  helpful.  Our  material 
and  moral  rewards  will  be  immeasurably  greater. 


GREETINGS   TO   THE   WORLD  FROM  THE  NEW 

LIBERAL  CONSTITUTIONAL  PARTY  IN 

MEXICO1 

By  Senor  Manuel  de  la  Pena,  Commerical  Agent  in  New 
York  of  the  Liberal  Constitutional  Government  of  Mexico 

I  have  been  kindly  invited  by  Clark  University  to  speak 
the  thoughts  of  my  fellow  citizens,  of  the  Liberal  Consti- 
tutionalist Government  which  I  have  the  honor  to  rep- 
resent as  Commercial  Agent  in  New  York,  before  this 
audience  of  intellectual  men  and  women. 

Were  I  speaking  to  an  ordinary  audience  I  would 
begin  by  recounting  something  of  Mexican  history;  I  would 
tell  you  something  of  the  Aztec  Indians  and  the  Spanish 
conquerors;  I  would  place  before  your  imagination  the 
wonderful  landscapes  of  the  Mexican  mountain  and  plateau 
so  as  to  set  a  background  for  my  address.  Such  an  exordium 
is  not  necessary;  you  are  all  well  acquainted  with  those 
details.  You  know  also  the  Mexican  psychology;  you  know 
that  we  are  not  fundamentally  different  from  other  peoples; 
that  we  have  virtues  and  defects,  that  we  have  in  Mexicogood 
men  and  bad  men,  just  as  in  any  other  country.  You  do  not 
belong  to  that  class  of  men  who,  when  they  read  that  a 
crime  has  been  committed  beyond  the  Rio  Grande,  at  once 
brand  as  criminal  the  whole  nation.  You  understand,  be- 
cause you  have  studied  history,  that  the  mere  existence  of 
a  bad  government  does  not  mean  that  the  people  afflicted 
by  that  misfortune  is  a  bad  people;  you  know  that 
sooner  or  later  that  people  will  react  and  will  overthrow 
such  obstacles  as  may  stand  in  its  way.  You  all  know  that 
such  misfortunes  as  occasional  bad  government  are  apt  to 

*An  address  delivered  at  the  Clark  University  Conference  on  Mexico 
and  the  Caribbean,  May  21,  1920. 

141 


142  MANUEL  DE   LA   PENA 

exist  anywhere;  yet  we  all  know  and  believe  that  in  the 
end.  whatever  be  the  immediate  trend  of  events,  justice 
and  righteousness  will  prevail. 

Mexico  is  evolving  from  an  epoch  of  darkness.  Experi- 
ence has  opened  the  eyes  of  the  people;  sufferings  and  hard- 
ships have  shown  us  the  straight  road  toward  progress; 
and  if  we  have  overthrown  an  objectionable  regime,  it  is 
because  we  knew  that  it  was  moving  in  the  wrong  direction; 
that  it  had  stepped  aside  from  the  path  of  justice  and  the 
right  interpretation  of  the  national  ideals. 

Long  ago,  when  the  Spanish  "encomenderos,"  who  were 
some  of  them  practically  slave  drivers,  herded  the  poor  Aztec 
Indians,  beating  them  in  order  to  derive  from  their  sufferings 
as  much  profit  as  possible,  regardless  of  their  anguish  and 
fatigue,  those  unfortunate  Indians  had  but  two  words  to 
answer,  two  words  in  their  wonderful  language,  full  of  bit- 
terness and  dignity:  "Ni  tlaca,"  which  means,  "We  are 
also  human." 

Mexico  has  for  a  long  tune  been  made  the  target  for 
many  malicious  blows.  The  faults  of  its  presidents  and 
the  crimes  of  its  outlaws  have  been  regarded  as  characterstic 
of  every  Mexican;  Mexico  has  been  for  a  long  time  at  bay; 
yet  we  believe  that  Mexicans  are  entitled  to  a  fair  trial, 
that  we  are  entitled  to  be  judged  impartially  and  justly 
by  those  who  know  us:  we  are  also  human. 

You  Americans  in  the  United  States  ask  yourselves  why 
it  is  that  the  elections  being  so  near,  scheduled  to  take 
place  this  coming  month  of  July,  we  Mexicans  could  not 
wait  for  them  in  order  to  settle  our  differences  through  the 
ballot.  But  I  would  ask  you  what  you  would  do,  if  one  of 
your  presidents  showed  that  he  was  planning  to  manipulate 
the  elections  in  favor  of  a  candidate  of  his  own  choice, 
quite  unknown  to  the  people,  because  that  candidate  had 
offered  to  become  a  blind  tool  in  his  hands;  if  this  man  in 
order  to  carry  out  that  plan  intended  to  send  troops  into 
some  of  the  states  and  even  to  overthrow  the  legal  governor 
of  one  of  them;  it  he  were  to  use  all  the  power  which  the 
people  had  vested  in  him,  and  the  funds  belonging  to  the 


LIBERAL  CONSTITUTIONAL   PARTY  IN  MEXICO  143 

nation,  in  order  to  support  his  unpopular  candidate,  and 
at  the  same  time  set  every  sort  of  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
the  other  candidates;  if  you  saw  your  country  provoking 
the  enmity  of  all  other  countries  without  accomplishing 
anything  for  the  welfare  of  your  own  people;  and  if  you 
understood  that  the  coming  election  was  to  be  merely  a 
farce  through  which  such  a  dishonest  re'gime  would  per- 
petuate itself  in  power.  Facing  this  situation,  if  you  knew 
that  you  could  not  resort  to  the  ballot,  would  you  not  then 
resort  to  bullets? 

Unfortunately,  that  was  the  situation  in  Mexico. 

Now  you  might  ask:  "How  are  we  to  know  that  this  new 
government  will  afford  adequate  guarantees  and  justice? 
All  revolutions  have  started  with  wonderful  promises  which 
were  never  fulfilled."  To  a  certain  extent  that  is  true; 
but  the  present  case  is  different.  This  popular  movement 
which  in  so  short  a  time  has  come  to  control  the  whole 
country,  has  been  started,  has  gone  on,  and  has  won  its 
goal  without  having  offered  any  glowing  promises;  still  it 
has  fulfilled  practically  every  hope.  Even  during  the 
period  of  fighting  life  and  property  has  been  respected,  no 
trespasses  committed,  no  injuries  inflicted  upon  anyone,  no 
revenge  satisfied.  All  have  been  afforded  adequate  guaran- 
tees, foreigners  as  well  as  nationals.  It  is  not  a  logical 
consequence  that  such  a  movement  deserves  confidence? 
Is  it  not  merely  common  sense  to  believe  in  results  after 
they  have  been,  accomplished? 

The  American  people  have  greeted  with  hope  and  sym- 
pathy a  new  Mexico.  We  have  seen  the  favorable  impres- 
sion which  the  fall  of  the  Carranza  re'gime  has  caused;  this 
sympathy  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  chiefly  the  Carranza 
re'gime  as  was  well  known,  which  has  made  impossible  a 
real  and  true  friendship  between  our  two  countries.  Both 
the  American  and  the  Mexican  peoples  wish  to  become 
friends,  to  work  in  cooperation;  but  this  result  has  been 
prevented  by  lack  of  mutual  understanding;  you,  as  well 
as  we,  have  nearly  always  intrusted  the  task  of  settling  our 
differences  to  men  who  knew  little,  if  anything,  of  the 


144  MANUEL  DE   LA   PENA 

other  country.  I  hope  that  in  the  future  this  will  be  other- 
wise, because  I  am  perfectly  confident  that  if  Mexicans 
who  know  you,  and  Americans  who  know  us,  were  allowed 
to  arrange  those  so-called  conflicts,  they  simply  could  not 
exist.  There  are  no  conflicts  between  both  peoples.  They 
have  been  many  conflicts  between  men,  Americans  and 
Mexicans,  whose  duty  it  was  to  have  avoided  them. 

We  young  men  of  Mexico,  as  well  as  all  those  who 
know  the  United  States,  have  realized  that,  unless  foreign 
capital  and  immigration  be  encouraged  to  go  into  our 
country  and  develop  its  natural  resources,  those  resources 
will  be  lost  to  the  world.  Those  who  are  willing  to  come 
to  us,  bringing  with  them  the  necessary  capital  to  help 
themselves  by  helping  us  to  develop  our  lands,  our  mines 
and  our  other  natural  resources,  will  not  go  into  and  settle 
in  a  country  hi  which  they  are  not  properly  protected  by 
the  laws.  We  know  how  the  United  States  has  been  devel- 
oped by  foreign  capital  and  immigration,  because  foreign 
investors  and  settlers  found  a  country  which  received  them 
with  open  arms  and  with  just  laws.  We  realize  that  our 
country  has  immense  treasures  which  are  waiting  for  the 
hands  that  are  to  make  them  useful  to  mankind;  we  realize 
that  we  need  aid  from  outside,  from  the  whole  world,  since 
no  country  has  ever  advanced  by  its  own  power  when 
inclosed  within  an  impassable  wall,  the  existence  of  which 
the  world  has  a  right  to  forbid. 

Therefore,  the  laws  that  we  intend  to  uphold  will  protect 
foreign  capital  and  immigration,  so  far  as  this  may  be  done 
hi  accordance  with  the  eternal  principles  of  justice  and 
equity. 

We  young  men  of  Mexico  who  have  had  the  benefit  of 
observing  the  consequences  that  past  mistakes  have  brought 
to  our  people,  intend,  hi  order  to  accomplish  a  truly  patriotic 
work,  to  give  especial  attention  to  the  education  of  the 
Indians  who  form  the  greatest  part  of  the  present  popula- 
tion of  Mexico.  So  far  the  governments  of  Mexico  have 
forgotten  the  Indians,  some  of  whom,  to  be  sure,  have  risen 
from  their  former  status,  and  made  a  name  for  themselves, 


LIBERAL   CONSTITUTIONAL   PARTY   IN   MEXICO  145 

but  the  great  majority  of  whom  are  still  in  much  the  same 
condition  as  their  ancestors,  prevented  from  amounting  to 
anything  because  of  then*  continuing  ignorance. 

Indians  have  been  accused  of  being  a  turbulent  race; 
they  are  not  so.  They  are  peaceful,  but  they  are  easily 
misled  by  anyone  who  offers  to  better  their  sad  condition. 
Now  we  mean  to  better  it,  and  to  do  it  not  by  giving  them 
arms,  but  by  giving  them  schools  and  books. 

The  Liberal  Constitutionalist  government  comes  to  you 
with  open  arms.  All  the  leaders  of  the  revolution  have 
spoken  to  the  American  people  asking  their  friendship  and 
cooperation  which  we  know  you  are  willing  to  give.  Gen- 
eral Obreg6n,  prominent  among  those  leaders,  has  said: 

My  ideal  for  the  relations  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States  is  to  make  the  international  border  like  the  Canadian 
boundary,  withdrawing  troops,  except  customs  officials. 

Carranza's  interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  a  mis- 
take, although  I  believe  Carranza  was  perfectly  sincere  in  the 
belief  that  his  policy  was  best  for  Mexico. 

Further,  I  will  quote  a  message  from  Mr.  Adolfo  de  la 
Huerta,  Provisional  President  of  the  new  government, 
which  was  dated  the  thirteenth  of  May: 

I  beg  to  ask  you  to  inform  the  government  of  the  United 
States  of  America  that  we  have  given  complete  guarantees  to 
natives  and  foreigners  not  only  in  this  state,  but  by  all  civil  and 
military  authorities  therein.  The  present  government  of  Mexico 
will  also  maintain  \he  firm  purpose  of  following  the  same  line  of 
conduct  by  giving  necessary  and  ample  guarantees  to  the  foreign 
capital  that  may  be  invested  in  this  Republic  in  conformity  with 
our  laws. 

Our  government  is  also  well  disposed  to  develop  relations  with 
the  United  States,  in  conformity  with  the  rules  of  international 
law  and  with  the  standards  of  absolute  justice,  equity  and  good 
faith. 

We  mean  to  banish  hatred,  that  obstacle  which  stands 
in  the  way  of  mankind;  we  intend  to  create  love  and  friend- 
ship through  mutual  understanding;  we  wish  you  to  go  to 
Mexico,  to  know  us,  to  become  acquainted  with  the  real 
Mexican  people.  We  also  wish  all  Mexicans  to  go  back  to 
their  country.  We  have  eliminated  the  word  "exiles;" 


146  MANUEL  DE  LA  PENA 

they  are  no  longer  exiled  from  Mexico.  We  have  even 
banished  the  word  " amnesty"  because  it  means  pardon. 
During  our  long  and  bitter  struggle  for  freedom  and  de- 
mocracy, some  Mexicans  have  been  mistaken,  some  misled; 
they  were  honest  and  sincere  in  then*  opinion;  they  need 
no  pardon;  they  are  guilty  of  no  offense;  Mexico  is  their 
country,  and  the  doors  are  open  to  them.  We  wish  the 
cooperation  of  every  honest  man. 

The  question  has  been  raised  whether  the  new  Govern- 
ment will  uphold  the  Constitution  of  1917  or  that  of  1857. 
What  I  can  assure  you  and  the  world  is  that  Mexico  will 
maintain  laws  which  will  satisfy  and  protect  every  legal 
right,  every  legitimate  enterprise,  laws  which  will  encourage 
foreign  capital  to  go  into  Mexico  and  to  help  us  to  develop 
our  natural  resources,  laws  against  which  no  objection  can 
be  justly  taken. 

General  Alvarado,  now  Minister  of  Finance,  alluding  to 
the  thoughts  of  the  new  Government  said : 

We  know  that  we  have  to  guarantee  the  lives  and  properties 
of  nationals  and  foreigners.  We  know  that  we  have  to  pay  our 
debts  as  gentlemen.  We  know  that  the  difficulties  of  Mexico 
affect  many  parts  of  the  world. 

And  because  we  are  conscious  of  our  situation  and  of  our  re- 
sponsibilities, we  wish  to  make  gigantic  efforts  to  comply  with 
our  duties,  not  to  be  run  over  as  a  hindrance,  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  troublesome  neighbor,  but  as  a  useful  and  excellent  friend 
always  ready  to  cooperate  in  every  effort  to  advance  civilization. 

We  Mexicans  of  today,  through  our  progressive  young  men,  do 
not  ask  more  of  the  world  than  a  little  patience  and  a  little  faith 
in  our  ability  to  solve  and  arrange  our  affairs. 

Have  faith  in  our  sincerity  and  in  our  latent  forces,  and  you 
will  not  repent. 

You  have  heard  the  words  of  those  who  are  leading  this 
movement,  words  which  unquestionably  inspire  confidence; 
you  have  seen  how  national  protest  has  eradicated  a  regime 
which  failed  to  interpret  the  real  will  of  a  people  anxious 
for  peace  and  order;  you  have  observed  their  conduct.  We 
have  indeed  gained  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  to  which, 
in  the  name  of  the  new  government  of  Mexico,  and  through 
the  kindness  of  this  most  distinguished  audience,  I  offer 
our  very  sincere  greetings. 


HOW   TO   RESTORE   PEACE    IN    MEXICO 

By  Honorable  Henry  Lane  Wilson,  Ambassador  of  the  United 
States  to  Mexico,  1909-1913 

Not  even  the  most  ardent  supporters  of  the  President  are 
bold  enough  to  attempt  a  defense  of  the  humiliating  and 
injurious  policy  which  the  administration  has  pursued  to- 
ward Mexico  during  the  last  seven  years;  the  Democratic 
National  Convention  of  1916  adjourned  without  having 
uttered  a  single  sentence  in  its  defense;  such  administration 
press  as  exists  is  apologetic,  evasive  and  misleading.  A  policy 
which  had  its  birth  under  radiant  skies  and  with  the  patient 
though  uncomprehending  approval  of  public  opinion  now 
has  none  so  poor  as  to  do  it  reverence.  From  the  Lind 
mission,  with  its  harlequinic  follies,  to  the  tragedies  of  Vera 
Cruz  and  Tampico;  from  these  unhappy  incidents  to  wide- 
spread anarchy  and  chaos  illuminated  by  the  passage  across 
the  stage  of  seven  bandit  presidents  shot  in  and  shot  out  of 
power,  the  plundering  of  cities,  the  rape  of  women,  the 
unrequited  murder  of  hundreds  of  Americans  and  the  exile 
of  thousands,  the  farcical  recognition  of  the  buffoon  military 
autocrat  Carranza  and  the  ghastly  spectacles  of  San  Ysabel, 
Columbus  and  Carrizal,  there  is  not  one  ray  of  light  to 
relieve  the  picture.  The  adventurous  philandering  and 
mischievous  intermeddling  of  the  Wilson  administration, 
which  by  its  policy  made  these  things  possible,  has  been 
witnessed  with  mixed  feelings  of  sorrow  and  amusement  by 
an  American  public  accustomed  to  dignity,  courage  and 
moderation  in  the  management  of  the  foreign  relations  of 
this  country;  and  Europe,  though  very  busy  just  now,  has 
looked  on  with  wondering  and  speculative  eyes. 

Whether  the  President  was  misled  by  false  or  by  ignorant 
agents  or  whether  his  breaking  away  from  the  century  old 
traditions  and  practices  of  this  government  sprung  from  the 
funeral  baked  meats  of  a  previous  pedagogical  environment, 

147 


148  HENRY   LANE   WILSON 

it  is  quite  evident  from  his  amazing  utterances  from  time 
to  time  that  he  has  learned  nothing  by  experience  and  that 
as  we  began  so  we  shall  continue.  So  far  as  this  admin- 
istration therefore  is  concerned  the  discussion  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  any  basis  for  the  procurement  of  an  enduring 
peace  in  Mexico  is  purely  academic.  We  must  wait  for 
sounder  statesmanship  and  stronger  arms. 

No  clear  discussion  of  the  question  of  enduring  peace  in 
Mexico  can  proceed  without  a  recital,  however  brief,  of 
relative  historical  antecedents.  Let  us  recall  then  the  cir- 
cumstance that  Porfirio  Diaz  was  the  last  of  sixty-three 
Mexican  presidents,  all  of  whom  attained  power  by  revo- 
lutionary methods  and  were  expelled  by  violence,  and  that 
since  the  time  of  Diaz  seven  chief  executives  have  presided 
over  the  destinies  of  this  unhappy  country.  Manifestly 
therefore  anarchic  and  extreme  revolutionary  conditions 
prevail  in  the  country  and  will  persist  indefinitely  until 
true  remedies  are  adopted. 

These  conditions  can  be  cured  by  the  application  of  two 
methods  only :  (1)  By  autocratic  restraint ;  (2)  by  evolution. 

The  method  of  autocratic  restraint  was  tried  by  Diaz  for 
thirty-five  years  and  succeeded  largely  because  Diaz  was 
not  only  an  autocrat  but  also  a  wise  and  just  ruler,  a  sincere 
patriot  and  an  honest  man.  Diaz  developed  the  material 
side  of  Mexico  in  a  most  marvelous  way.  He  covered  her 
soil  with  a  network  of  railways;  developed  her  mining,  her 
agricultural  and  her  manufacturing  resources  and  with  his 
army  and  rural  police  made  life  as  safe  upon  a  Mexican  high- 
way as  upon  one  of  the  public  thoroughfares  of  the  state  of 
Massachusetts.  But  he  never  found  or  awakened  the  soul 
of  Mexico.  Believing,  as  I  know  he  did,  that  the  moral 
and  intellectual  development  of  Mexico  would  follow  her 
physical  evolution,  he  founded  a  peculiar  civilization  and  a 
new  system  of  governmental  control.  Over  a  foundation 
of  Aztec  barbarism,  ignorance  and  superstition  he  spread  a 
thin  veneer  of  Aryan  supremacy.  Working  under  this  sys- 
tem the  government  was  severe  but  just.  It  was  not  a 
democracy;  it  was  not  politically  free,  but  no  man,  who 
obeyed  the  law,  suffered  either  in  life  or  goods. 


HOW  TO   RESTORE    PEACE   IN  MEXICO  149 

But  Diaz  passed  and  then  came  Madero,  a  well  inten- 
tioned  man,  of  small  capacity  and  hampered  with  an  impos- 
sible program.  Entering  into  power  as  the  apostle  of  many 
flamboyant  and  subversive  theories,  he  was  driven  by  the 
stern  necessities  of  the  dangerous  position  which  he  occu- 
pied into  the  maintenance  of  a  form  of  government  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  that  maintained  by  Diaz.  He  hacked 
away  at  the  Aryan  veneer  but  it  resisted  and  persisted;  he 
threw  into  confusion  and  disorder  the  system  created  by 
Diaz  but  gave  the  Mexican  people  nothing  in  place  of  it;  he 
vacillated  between  extremists  and  reactionists  and  finally 
lost  the  support  of  all  elements  of  society. 

That  a  man  of  the  Huerta  type  would  succeed  Madero 
was  inevitable  to  those  who  know  the  Mexican  psychology. 
Having  had  weakness  the  country  wanted  strength ;  in  place 
of  vacillation  it  wanted  firmness.  Therefore  though  Huerta 
came  into  power  as  the  result  of  the  violent  overthrow  of 
Madero  he  was  received  willingly  if  not  enthusiastically  by 
the  Mexican  people.  Huerta  was  a  man  of  strong  passions, 
great  courage  and  patriotism;  his  ambition  was  to  restore 
the  system  of  Diaz  but  he  lacked  the  genius  and  constructive 
industry  of  Diaz.  Lacking  these  qualities  he  fell  a  victim 
to  conspiracies  and  was  driven  from  power  by  the  armies 
and  fleets  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  leaving 
behind  him  chaotic  conditions  which  endure  to  this  hour. 

None  of  these  three  governments  tried  the  experiment  of 
evolution  (number  two);  that  is  to  say,  firm  government 
accompanied  by  gradual  extension  of  power  to  the  people 
as  they  become  more  fitted  for  its  exercise  by  education 
and  by  training  in  the  principles  of  true  democracy.  Paren- 
thetically it  may  be  said  that  Mexico  can  never  be  revolu- 
tionized into  the  practice  of  constitutional  and  democratic 
methods.  Eighty  per  cent  of  the  population  can  neither 
read  nor  write  and  are  as  ignorant  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  true  democracy  or  of  constitutional  methods  as  a 
Zulu  or  a  Hottentot.  Let  us  carry  away  from  this  part  of 
the  discussion  therefore  the  idee  fixe,  that  in  any  scheme  for 
the  restoration  of  peaceful  conditions  in  Mexico  the  plan 
of  Evolution  must  be  included. 


150  HENRY   LANE   WILSON 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  constructive  methods 
for  restoration  of  peaceful  conditions  in  Mexico.  It  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  any  plan,  originating  with  this  gov- 
ernment, for  the  restoration  of  peaceful  conditions  in  Mex- 
ico will  be,  in  a  large  measure,  repugnant  to  the  Mexican 
people.  But  it  must  be  also  remembered  that  the  phrase 
"Mexican  people"  is  merely  a  figure  of  speech;  as  a  nation 
Mexico  passed  away  with  Diaz.  What  we  have  is  a  sick 
patient  requiring  a  drastic  surgical  operation;  the  knife 
should  be  applied  without  consideration  of  the  patient's 
wishes. 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  three  practical  methods  of  pro- 
curing peace  in  Mexico.  None  of  these  methods  have  been 
considered  by  the  present  administration,  a  circumstance 
however,  which  ought  not  to  weigh  heavily  against  them. 
They  are : 

1.  Active  and  sympathetic  support  of  the  real  governing 
elements  in  Mexico.  By  the  phrase  "Real  governing  ele- 
ments in  Mexico"  I  mean  the  white  race  or  those  elements 
of  the  population  in  sympathy  with  the  white  race.  Of 
Mexico's  fourteen  million  population  probably  three  million 
would  fall  under  this  description.  Upon  this  element  of  the 
population  a  great  responsibility  has  always  rested;  from 
it  comes  the  great  army  of  proprietors  and  farmers,  the 
occupants  of  official  executive  and  administrative  positions, 
the  bar,  the  bench,  the  military  rank  and  to  a  very  large 
extent  the  shop  keepers  of  Mexico.  This  element  of  the 
Mexican  population  has  been  driven  into  exile  by  the  bar- 
barities and  tyrannies  of  Carranza  and  Villa  and  their 
followers;  with  it  has  gone  all  precedent,  tradition  and  prac- 
tice. Most  of  these  people  are  friendly  to  real  constitu- 
tional government  and  in  their  ranks  only  are  found  those 
who  understand  the  value  of  system,  organization  and  sci- 
ence hi  government.  By  one  road  or  another,  sooner  or 
later,  they  will  come  into  control  again  in  Mexico.  Mani- 
festly to  those  who  know  Mexico,  it  would  be  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  recognize  the  position  of  this  element  of  the 
population,  to  weld  it  into  an  organized  force,  to  support 
it  with  sympathy  and  direct  espousal  and  having,  in  amends 


HOW  TO  RESTORE   PEACE   IN  MEXICO  151 

for  our  misdeeds  of  the  past,  aided  in  the  installation  of  a 
responsible  government  we  should  seal  the  birth  of  real 
democracy  by  provisions  in  a  revised  Mexican  constitution 
which  would  lead  to  gradual  enlightenment  of  the  masses, 
improvement  in  the  conditions  of  the  laboring  classes,  a 
more  equitable  distribution  of  lands,  an  unbiased  function- 
ing of  the  courts  of  justice,  and  religious  freedom.  A  political 
party  armed  with  a  program  like  this,  energetically  sup- 
ported by  this  government,  would  quickly  gain  the  ascend- 
ency and  with  the  good  will  and  sympathy  of  the  world 
might  address  itself  to  the  task  of  restoring  order,  peace 
and  reform  with  hope  and  confidence. 

2.  The  creation,  organization  and  recognition  of  a  new 
independent  republic  to  extend  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the 
twenty-second  parallel.  This  would  include  all  of  the  states 
of  Sonora,  Chihuahua,  Sinaloa,  Durango,  Coahuila,  Nuevo 
Leon  and  Tamaulipas  and  the  territory  of  Lower  California, 
an  area  more  than  thrice  that  of  Texas  and  richer  in  re- 
sources. The  creation  of  such  an  independent  republic 
would  have  the  following  advantages. 

(a)  It  would  include  a  vast  area  of  fertile  agricultural  and 
mining  lands  and  under  the  direction  and  protection  of  this 
government  and  with  liberal  laws  governing  immigration 
and  citizenship  would  ultimately  develop  into  a  prosperous 
and  self  sustaining  nation  maintaining  order  and  demo- 
cratic institutions. 

(b)  It  would'  operate  as  a  " buffer"  state  between  this 
country  and  its  parent  country. 

(c)  It  would  afford  self  government  to  a  part  of  Mexico 
which  the  central  government  at  Mexico  City  has  never 
been  able  to  successfully  control  and  which  has  been  the 
breeding  place  of  all  recent  Mexican  revolutionary  move- 
ments. 

(d)  It  would  leave  remaining  to  Mexico  the  territory 
which  is  the  center  of  her  wealth  and  population  and  over 
which  she  might  reasonably  be  expected  to  exercise  suc- 
cessful control. 

I  do  not  advocate  this  plan  as  a  desirable  one  from  every 
standpoint.  I  would  prefer  to  see  a  united  and  peaceful 


152  HENRY   LANE   WILSON 

Mexico  within  her  present  limits  without  an  acre  subtracted 
from  her  territories  or  a  single  citizen  lost.  I  am  neverthe- 
less confident  that  the  creation  of  such  a  buffer  state  would 
ultimately  produce  peace  and  order  in  both  the  old  and 
new  republic. 

8.  Armed  intervention.  Except  to  protect  the  lives  and 
property  of  American  citizens  and  for  the  punishment  of 
those  who  unlawfully  destroy  either,  I  have  always  been 
opposed  to  intervention,  armed  or  otherwise,  in  the  affairs 
of  Mexico.  I  have  believed  that  while  intervention  might 
be  an  excellent  thing  for  Mexico  and  her  people  its  resultant 
effect  upon  our  own  body  politic  would  be  evil  and  disas- 
trous. Political  adventures  undertaken  in  the  name  of 
civilization  too  often  culminate  in  hypocritical  cant  about 
"  pulling  down  the  flag/'  "our  manifest  destiny  "and  the 
"pressure  of  population." 

Nevertheless,  there  were  in  Mexico  four  years  ago  sev- 
enty-five thousand  industrious,  law  abiding  American  citi- 
zens; pioneers  of  our  commerce,  of  our  traditions  and  cus- 
toms, who  had  made  homes  there  and  were  developing  the 
riches  and  resources  of  the  country.  These  peaceable  people 
have  been  despoiled  of  their  goods  and  chattels,  have  been 
expelled  from  the  country  and  many  hundreds  of  them  have 
been  foully  and  brutally  murdered. 

The  President  asked  once  in  a  speech  in  New  York  "what 
glory  can  be  got  out  of  a  war  with  Mexico."  It  may  be 
answered  that  we  can  get  none,  but  we  can  discharge  a 
sacred  duty  to  those  Americans,  who  under  the  administra- 
tion of  Cleveland,  Roosevelt  and  Taft  had  not  to  seek  the 
protection  of  the  British  flag  but  rather  found  Britons  seek- 
ing and  receiving  the  protection  of  the  American  flag.  How 
can  a  peaceable  and  orderly  republic  such  as  ours  quietly 
endure  for  an  indefinite  period  disorderly  and  chaotic  con- 
ditions within  sight  of  our  own  border?  If  we  have  not  a 
duty  to  fulfill  to  civilization  we  have  one  to  fulfill  to  our- 
selves hi  the  maintenance  of  peaceful  conditions  in  this 
continent;  unless  we  undertake  this  job  of  house  cleaning 
we  may  later  have  to  witness  the  task  being  done  by  a 
strong  and  powerful  hand  from  across  the  sea.  Though  I 


HOW  TO   RESTORE   PEACE   IN   MEXICO  153 

have  not  advocated  intervention  by  this  government  in 
Mexican  affairs,  except  in  discharge  of  duty  to  our  nationals, 
I  have  always  believed  it  to  be  inevitable  since  the  over- 
throw of  Huerta  by  the  present  Wilson  administration.  On 
the  occasion  of  my  retirement  from  the  position  of  ambassa- 
dor to  Mexico  I  made  the  subjoined  recommendations  to 
the  President. 

RECOMMENDATIONS  CONCERNING  MEXICO  SUBMITTED  BY  AMBAS- 
SADOR WILSON  TO  THE  PRESIDENT  IN  AUGUST,  1913,  AND  AFTER- 
WARDS TO  THE  COMMITTEE  ON  FOREIGN  RELATIONS  OF  THE 

SENATE 

Recognition 

Recognition  under  the  present  circumstances  cannot  be  made 
with  the  same  effects  and  the  same  results  as  immediately  after 
the  assumption  of  power  by  the  new  administration.  It  would 
be  misconstrued,  now,  as  a  yielding  to  pressure  and  force,  and 
would  result  in  the  loss  of  great  prestige. 

If  recognition  is  accorded  it  should  be  done  in  the  following  way: 

First:  By  a  preamble,  recognizing  the  remarkable  and  unpre- 
cedented situation  in  Mexico,  the  desire  of  the  United  States  to 
contribute  to  the  restoration  of  order  in  a  neighboring  and  friendly 
state,  and  the  necessity,  on  account  of  the  important  matters 
daily  pending  between  the  two  governments,  to  establish  full 
official  relations  with  all  the  benefits  and  obligations  resulting 
therefrom. 

Second:  No  recognition  should  be  accorded  unless  the  important 
international  questions,  like  the  Chamazal,  the  Colorado  River 
and  the  specific  claims  falling  under  a  clear  rule  of  international 
law,  shall  be  immediately  closed  upon  the  basis  presented  by  the 
government  of  the  United  States  and  agreed  to  by  the  government 
of  Mexico  in  correspondence  with  the  ambassador  and  verbally. 

Third:  Recognition  should  not  be  accorded  unless  an  inter- 
national claims  commission,  having  jurisdiction  over  all  kinds 
and  classes  of  claims  arising  out  of  the  revolutionary  movements 
during  the  last  three  years  shall  be  admitte'd  in  principle  by  the 
Mexican  government. 

Fourth:  Recognition  should  not  be  accorded  unless  ample 
guarantees  for  the  holding  of  a  constitutional  presidential  election, 
during  the  month  of  October  shall  be  given;  and  this  would  involve 
the  removal  of  the  present  Minister  of  Gobernacion,  who  is  a 
pure  creature  of  Huerta,  and  the  substitution  therefore,  of  a 
Mexican  of  force  and  power — say  Calero — who  is  thoroughly 
committed  to  the  principle  of  constitutional  government. 

Fifth:  Recognition  should  not  be  accorded  unless  the  federal 
government  is  able  to  furnish  evidence  of  its  ability  to  restore 
peace  and  order  to  the  22nd  parallel. 


154  HENRY   LANE   WILSON 

Sixth:  Recognition  should  not  be  accorded  unless  an  arrange- 
ment can  be  made  by  which  the  American  Government,  in  co- 
operation with  the  Mexican  Government,  will  be  permitted  to 
cross  the  border  and  aid  the  federal  authorities  in  restoration  of 
order  down  to  the  22nd  parallel,  always  giving  ample  stipulations 
for  the  retirement  of  our  troops,  whenever  order  and  peace  have 
been  established,  in  the  judgment  of  the  United  States  and  Mexi- 
can commissioners  duly  appointed. 

Recognition  accorded  in  this  manner  will  restore  our  lost 
prestige,  impress  foreign  and  native  opinion  in  Mexico  and 
undoubtedly  restore  peace  and  prevent  further  bloodshed. 

Intervention 

If  recognition  is  not  accorded  in  some  form  or  other,  our  duties 
as  a  civilized  nation,  pledged  to  the  world  to  preserve  the  peace 
and  order  of  this  hemisphere,  point  directly  to  immediate  and 
effective  intervention. 

This  should  be  done  in  the  following  way: 

First:  By  discreetly  removing  the  already  decimated  and  ruined 
American  population  from  Mexico. 

Second:  By  the  transfer  of  the  charge  of  our  diplomatic  and 
consular  establishments  to  representatives  of  other  powers. 

Third:  By  the  massing  of  our  fleet  in  overwhelming  proportions, 
aided  by  effective  marine  reserves,  at  every  Mexican  port  on  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific. 

Fourth:  By  the  massing  of  our  army,  fully  equipped  for  invasion, 
at  every  strategic  point  lying  on  the  border  states,  and  the  calling 
out  of  the  reserves  in  all  border  states. 

Fifth:  By  the  appointment  of  commissioners,  one  of  whom 
should  be  the  ambassador,  another  the  general-in-chief  of  the 
army,  another  the  ranking  officer  of  the  investing  fleet  and  another 
a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  of  the  Senate. 
The  duty  of  this  commission  would  be  to  seek,  by  a  preliminary 
action,  a  reconciliation  of  all  the  contending  forces  in  Mexico, 
with  the  understanding  that  their  duties  should  be  urgent,  ex- 
peditious and  not  to  be  detained  by  any  dilatory  methods,  and 
with  a  further  understanding  that  they  should  follow  in  the  path 
of  invasion,  re-establishing  the  rule  of  law  and  dispensing  justice 
and  order  in  the  name  of  the  United  States. 

Any  invasion  should  be  accompanied  by  a  public  statement 
that  our  purpose  is  not  one  of  aggression,  but  that  we  are  acting 
in  the  discharge  of  a  duty  to  humanity  and  civilization  and  that 
when  once  constitutional  methods  and  practices  are  re-established 
and  firm  government  installed  our  troops  will  retire  to  the  United 
States. 

Since  these  recommendations  were  made  Mexico  has  gone 
from  bad  to  worse — we  have  forcibly  intervened  twice;  we 
have  called  out  the  border  militia  and  have  penetrated 


HOW  TO   RESTORE   PEACE   IN  MEXICO  155 

Mexican  soil  to  practically  the  22nd  parallel.  We  inter- 
vened at  Vera  Cruz  without  reason  or  right  and  retreated 
amid  execrations  and  ridicule.  We  justly  intervened  after 
the  Columbus  raid,  but  tardily  and  unpreparedly.  In 
neither  of  these  instances  have  we  contributed  to  the  pro- 
tection of  American  citizens  or  to  the  restoration  of  peace- 
able conditions  in  Mexico.  Intervention  if  it  is  to  take 
place  should  be  made  by  competent  hands  and  not  subordi- 
nated to  political  exigencies — no  pin  pricking,  no  wobbling, 
no  epistolary  bombardments.  Bearing  in  mind  the  m- 
competency  and  vacillation  which  the  present  administra- 
tion has  displayed  in  the  management  of  our  own  domestic 
and  foreign  affairs  I  doubt  whether  it  can  be  trusted  to 
successfully  restore  peace  and  order  in  Mexico  through 
intervention. 

I  have  stated  here  three  methods  by  which  peace  can  be 
restored  in  Mexico. 

1.  Active  and  sympathetic  support  of  the  real  governing 
elements  in  Mexico. 

2.  By  the  creation,  organization  and  recognition  of  an 
independent  republic  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  22nd 
parallel. 

3.  Armed  intervention. 

All  of  these  methods  are  fairly  subject  to  attack  and 
criticism;  all  have  weak  points;  any  one  of  them,  if  adopted, 
may  produce  enduring  peace  south  of  the  Rio  Grande. 


A  CONSTRUCTIVE  POLICY  FOR  MEXICO 

By  Roger  W.  Babson,  President  of  the  Babson  Statistical 
Organization;  Member  of  the  Federal  Central  Ameri- 
can Commission  of  1916 

For  some  time  the  scenery  has  been  set  for  some  kind 
of  intervention  in  Mexico.  This  came  near  happening  dur- 
ing the  early  part  of  President  Wilson's  illness,  and  what 
occurred  at  that  time  was  very  largely  responsible  for  Sec- 
retary Lansing's  resignation.  Had  the  Republicans  then 
been  in  power,  that  incident  would  doubtless  have  been 
made  an  excuse  for  Mexican  intervention. 

Although  Carranza  should  be  given  certain  sympathy 
and  respect  for  what  he  has  done,  yet  his  doom  was  sure  to 
come.  Like  many  others,  he  had  over-reached  himself, 
forgetting  the  ladder  by  which  he  climbed  up.  The  only 
thing  which  had  saved  Carranza  for  some  time  was  the  fact 
that  he  had  no  strong  opponent.  Since  the  armistice,  the 
European  governments,  and  quite  likely  the  United  States, 
had  been  hoping  for  some  strong  opponent  whom  they  could 
endorse  and  recognize. 

Straight  out  and  out  intervention  would  be  very  danger- 
ous and  very  costly,  both  directly  and  for  its  effect  upon 
the  whole  of  Latin  America.  If,  however,  there  were  two 
strong  factions  in  Mexico,  between  which  the  United  States 
and  European  countries  would  be  compelled  to  choose, 
then  these  nations  would  be  justified  in  backing  the  new 
party.  Conditions  are  bad  in  Mexico.  Both  the  Mexican 
people  and  the  rest  of  the  world  are  anxious  for  peace  so 
that  they  can  develop  their  country  and  its  industries. 
Anything  which  can  bring  about  such  peace  is  justifiable 
and  is  to  be  desired. 

FALLACY  OF  WAB 

Although  I  do  not  take  the  pacifist's  view  regarding 
Mexican  intervention,  I  am  impressed  by  some  figures  which 
the  leaders  of  the  Interchurch  Movement  have  recently 

156 


A   CONSTRUCTIVE   POLICY   FOR  MEXICO  157 

given  out.  They  claim  that  the  money  spent  during  the 
first  six  months  of  General  Pershing's  border  campaign 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  establish  a  good  public  school 
system,  an  agricultural  college  and  a  modern  hospital  in 
every  Mexican  city  of  over  4000  people.  In  addition,  there 
would  have  been  available  an  endowment  of  several  hundred 
thousand  dollars  for  educational  work  in  each  of  these  com- 
munities. These  figures  are  simply  based  on  the  cost  of 
the  first  six  months'  military  campaign.  When  the  total 
cost  and  the  present  cost  are  considered,  the  figures  would 
be  most  astounding. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have  been  opposed  to 
military  intervention.  It  has,  however,  been  generally  be- 
lieved that  intervention  of  some  kind  would  some  day  be 
inevitable.  By  nature  we  are  our  brother's  keeper,  and  the 
responsibility  cannot  be  avoided  either  by  the  demands  of 
the  militarists  or  by  the  resolutions  of  the  pacifists.  The 
real  question  is — shall  intervention  be  of  military  and 
destructive  nature  or  shall  it  be  of  an  educational  and  con- 
structive nature?  The  idea  that  we  can  continue  to  sit  by 
and  take  no  sides  in  the  troubles  of  our  nearest  neighbor  is 
preposterous.  Even  if  the  present  revolutionists  are 
friendly  to  the  financial  interests  of  the  United  States,  this 
does  not  obviate  the  probability  of  intervention  in  some 
form.  Although  we  now  do  not  have  to  intervene  to  get 
Carranza  out  (as  was  the  common  opinion  a  few  months 
ago)  we  may  be  obliged  to  intervene  some  day  in  order  to 
keep  the  new  interests  in  power  or  to  prevent  them  from 
fighting  among  themselves. 

The  moral  question  involved  in  Mexican  intervention  is 
the  eternal  question.  Both  those  who  favor  military  inter- 
vention and  those  who  oppose  it  base  their  contentions  on 
the  " brother's  keeper"  theory.  Granting,  however,  that 
we  are  our  brother's  keeper  does  not  make  the  end  justify 
the  means.  Two  wrongs  do  not  make  a  right,  and  in  pro- 
tecting others  in  Mexico,  we  should  be  very  careful  to  use 
methods  which  cannot  be  questioned.  This  is  another 
reason  why,  if  there  is  to  be  any  kind  of  intervention,  it 
should  be  constructive  intervention  of  the  most  unselfish 
type. 


158  ROGER  W.  BABSON 

RELATIONS  WITH  ALL  LATIN  AMERICA 

Irrespective  of  the  moral  issue  involved,  we  should  con- 
sider the  effect  of  military  intervention  on  Mexico  and  the 
other  Lathi  American  countries.  Ever  since  we  took  Texas 
and  California  away  from  Mexico,  the  Latin  Americans 
have  been  suspicious  of  us.  This  suspicion  was  increased 
when  we  took  Porto  Rico,  Panama  and  began  to  interfere 
in  certain  other  Latin  American  countries.  "  Dollar  diplo- 
macy/' as  the  American  policy  is  called,  is  very  repugnant  to 
the  Central  and  South  American  people.  It  is  true  that 
the  Wilson  administration  has  healed  these  wounds  to  a 
large  extent.  Today  we  are  on  more  friendly  terms  with 
Latin  America  than  at  any  time  since  the  days  of  Monroe. 
Military  intervention,  however,  in  Mexico,  would  smash 
our  Latin  American  friendships  and  undo  all  the  good  which 
has  been  accomplished  during  the  past  eight  years. 

Psychologically,  this  would  be  a  most  dangerous  time  to 
temporize  at  this  tune  with  with  the  friendship  of  Latin 
America.  During  the  past  five  years  we  have  secured  a 
grip  on  Latin  American  trade  because  the  English,  French, 
and  Germans  were  unable  to  supply  the  goods  or  finance 
the  purchases.  The  Latin  Americans  were  compelled  to 
trade  with  us  or  go  without  the  goods.  Now  the  markets 
of  the  world  are  again  open,  transportation  lines  are  re- 
established, and  the  Latin  Americans  can  again  buy  from 
either  Europe  or  America  as  they  desire.  Moreover,  it  is 
only  human  nature  that  the  English  and  French  should 
make  a  strenuous  effort  to  get  back  the  trade  which  was 
formerly  theirs  and  which  we  took  while  they  were  busy 
protecting  civilization.  Furthermore,  the  Germans,  who 
were  always  unfair  to  us  in  connection  with  Latin  American 
trade,  will  now  renew  their  efforts  with  great  vigor  and 
resort  to  any  means  to  get  back  again  into  the  folds. 

Under  these  conditions,  it  is  evident  that  if  we  attempted 
military  intervention  in  Mexico  our  European  competitors 
would  use  this  as  an  argument  against  us  in  connection  with 
trading  in  Lathi  America.  These  Central  and  South  Amer- 
ican people  are  very  sympathetic  and  almost  sentimental 


A   CONSTRUCTIVE    POLICY   FOR   MEXICO  159 

when  it  comes  to  trading.  By  nature  they  consider  ques- 
tions of  honor  and  friendship  vastly  more  important  than 
questions  of  dollars  and  pounds  sterling.  Hence,  if  any 
kind  of  intervention  is  necessary,  it  must  be  a  constructive, 
unselfish  intervention,  one  which  will  not  arouse  the  enmity 
of  Central  and  South  America. 

CONSTRUCTIVE  INTERVENTION 

A  constructive  form  of  intervention  in  Mexico  means 
more  than  the  building  of  schools,  agricultural  colleges,  and 
hospitals,  or  the  supplying  of  teachers,  doctors,  and  nurses. 
A  constructive  form  of  intervention  in  Mexico  requires  the 
rehabilitation  of  Mexican  railways  and  banks,  and  the  intro- 
duction of  agricultural  machinery,  seed,  fertilizer,  and  some 
form  of  supervision.  In  talking  this  over  with  Senators  in 
Washington,  I  find  that  they  are  favorably  disposed  to 
such  intervention,  provided  we  can  " police"  the  country 
in  order  to  " protect"  our  investments.  Some  even  say: 
"This  is  all  we  want  to  do  now;  but  there  is  no  need  of  the 
government's  supplying  this  money.  The  financial  inter- 
ests of  the  United  States  and  England  are  ready  at  any 
time  to  go  to  Mexico  and  operate  the  mines,  develop  the 
ranches,  and  teach  the  people  how  to  work."  This  is  very 
true,  but  they  demand  the  control  of  the  properties  if  not 
the  control  of  the  country.  This  is  where  the  rub  comes. 

For  a  constructive  policy  in  Mexico  to  succeed,  the  con- 
trol of  the  properties  must  remain  with  the  Mexicans  so 
far  as  further  developments  go.  We  must  have  for  our 
motto,  " Mexico  for  the  Mexicans,"  rather  than  "Mexico 
for  the  Americans."  This  is  the  rock  on  which  the  inter- 
vention discussions  ultimately  become  shipwrecked.  The 
Mexicans  would  rather  go  on  in  their  present  inefficient  and 
unhappy  way,  but  feeling  that  when  they  do  work  out  their 
own  salvation  it  will  be  their  own,  than  to  have  immediate 
peace  and  prosperity  and  lose  control  of  their  properties  in 
the  process.  Shouldn't  we  respect  them  for  their  willing- 
ness to  sacrifice  the  present  in  order  to  insure  the  future? 
We  people  of  the  United  States  have  twice  been  through 


160  ROGER  W.   BABSON 

the  same  experience  that  they  are  going  through;  our  revo- 
lutionary days  extended  over  a  generation;  our  Civil  War 
tore  the  country  asunder.  At  both  of  these  times  foreign 
governments,  in  the  interests  of  immediate  peace  and  pros- 
perity, attempted  to  interfere  and  "make  us  behave."  We 
know  how  we  would  have  resented  their  intervention  and 
that  it  would  simply  have  prolonged  the  struggle  and  de- 
layed the  result. 

It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature  that  nations  and  individuals 
must  work  out  their  own  salvation  and  find  themselves 
through  struggle  and  sacrifice.  There  is  no  short  road  to 
growth.  Development  takes  tune.  We  can  truly  aid  a 
boy  by  helping  him  to  help  himself,  but  we  cannot  go  any 
further.  We  can  give  him  the  help  for  which  he  asks, 
but  we  cannot  force  aid  upon  him  without  disaster.  We 
can  show  him  the  error  of  his  ways  and  urge  him  to  follow 
other  paths,  but  as  soon  as  we  use  force  or  restraint,  the 
reaction  is  very  dangerous.  It  is  the  same  with  nations. 
We  can  remove  the  causes  of  war  and  revolution  by  giving 
more  freedom  to  the  people,  supplying  work  to  the  unem- 
ployed, and  furnishing  tools,  seeds  and  other  things  neces- 
sary to  get  industry  established.  When,  however,  we  go 
any  further,  we  tread  on  dangerous  ground. 

From  what  I  have  said,  some  readers  may  think  I  am 
opposed  to  intervention  of  any  kind  and  believe  only  in  the 
Wilson  policy  of  "watchful  waiting."  Theoretically,  I 
think  the  Wilson  policy  is  correct  and  if  the  Europeans  had 
the  same  vision,  I  would  favor  no  form  of  intervention  what- 
ever. Europe,  however,  has  not  the  vision.  The  practical 
situation  is  that  if  we  do  not  intervene  in  some  way  Europe 
will.  Such  European  intervention  would  be  a  distinct  mis- 
take. Therefore,  as  we  cannot  have  the  ideal  conditions,  we 
must  make  the  best  of  the  situation  and  choose  the  lesser  of 
the  two  evils.  As  Grover  Cleveland  said :  "We  must  adapt 
ourselves  to  conditions  rather  than  to  theories."  It  is  very 
evident  that  some  form  of  intervention  is  inevitable  and 
that,  if  the  Republicans  are  successful  in  November,  the 
United  States  will  intervene  in  Mexico.  Therefore,  the 
question  is,  what  shall  the  form  of  intervention  be?  Shall 


A   CONSTRUCTIVE    POLICY   FOR  MEXICO  161 

it  be  destructive,  based  on  force,  or  shall  it  be  constructive, 
based  on  the  principles  of  righteousness,  justice  and  broth- 
erly kindness? 

This  is  a  suggestion:  that  we  insist  Mexico  protect  for- 
eign interests  on  the  legitimate  investments  made  previous 
to  1917;  but  that  we  cooperate  with  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment in  its  present  desire  to  bring  about  a  new  social  order. 
In  short,  let  us  compromise  by  saying  we  conform  to  your 
new  policy  provided  you  do  not  make  it  retro-active. 

RELIGIOUS  STATESMEN  NEEDED 

The  great  need  of  the  hour  hi  Washington  and  the  capitals 
of  Europe  is  more  religion.  The  great  need  is  for  religious 
statesmen  who  are  afraid  neither  to  tackle  big  problems  nor 
to  tackle  them  in  new  ways.  A  great  difficulty  today  seems 
to  be  that  our  political  leaders  are  largely  made  up  of  two 
classes — either  they  are  fearless  and  strong  men,  like  some 
of  our  senators,  but  stand  for  anti-Christian  principles;  or 
else  they  are  weak-kneed  men  who  stand  for  what  is  good, 
but  who  lack  the  stamina  and  courage  to  insist  upon  these 
Christian  principles  being  carried  out.  The  way  the  Mexi- 
can situation  is  being  handled  is  a  very  good  illustration  of 
the  way  these  two  groups  of  statesmen  work.  The  first 
group  believe  in  military  intervention  so  strongly  that  they 
are  willing  to  kill,  destroy,  and  even  wreck  the  League  of 
Nations  in  order  to  make  intervention  possible;  while  the 
pacifist  group  is  too  cowardly  to  do  anything.  A  great 
opportunity  exists  for  some  statesman  to  stand  for  intervention, 
but  to  insist  on  a  sane,  constructive  form  of  intervention  whereby 
the  money  will  be  spent  on  schools,  hospitals,  farming  machin- 
ery, and  transportation.  If  one  half  the  money  being  spent 
now  by  our  Army  and  Navy  in  connection  with  Mexico 
were  spent  in  helping  Mexico  agriculturally  and  industri- 
ally, used  in  improving  the  transportation  systems  and  in 
doing  other  constructive  work,  we  should  be  making  real 
friends  instead  of  enemies  and  the  entire  world  would  be 
infinitely  better  off. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  LATIN  AMERICA 

By  John  F.  Moors,  LL.D.,  Senior  Member,  Moors  and  Cabot, 
Bankers;  President,  Boston  Associated  Charities 

This  country  entered  the  Spanish  War  primarily  to  help 
Cuba,  though  there  were  savage  cries  of  "  Remember  the 
Maine"  and  certain  sensational  newspapers  were  doing  their 
best  to  shove  us  into  the  war.  We  came  out  of  the  Spanish 
war  still  trying  to  help  Cuba  and  determined  that  our  prom- 
ise to  her  of  independence  would  be  kept. 

The  diplomats  of  the  old  world  ridiculed  our  virtuous  pro- 
fessions at  the  tune.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  speaking  at 
Christiania,  Norway,  in  1910,  told  how  these  diplomats 
poked  fun  at  him,  assuring  him  that  these  virtuous  promises 
would  be  broken  and  he,  insistent  usually  that  insult  should 
be  resisted,  accepted  the  jibes  without  offense,  so  habitu- 
ated was  everyone  to  the  scandalous  standards  then  preva- 
lent in  international  diplomacy.  In  his  autobiography,  pub- 
lished in  1913  he  wrote: — 

We  had  explicitly  promised  to  leave  the  island  of  Cuba,  had 
explicitly  promised  that  Cuba  should  be  independent.  Wnen 
the  promise  was  made,  I  doubt  if  there  was  a  single  ruler  or  diplo- 
mat in  Europe  who  believed  that  it  would  be  kept.  As  far  as  I 
know,  the  United  States  was  the  first  power  which,  having  made 
a  promise,  kept  it  in  letter  and  spirit. 

Unfortunately,  half  a  century  before  the  war  with  Spain, 
we  had  waged  war  from  motives,  which  might  easily  be 
interpreted  as  ignoble,  with  Mexico  and,  defeating  her, 
despoiled  her  of  half  her  territory.  This  event  sank  deep 
into  the  minds,  not  only  of  Mexico,  but  of  all  Latin  America. 
The  "Colossus  of  the  North"  was  feared  and,  because 
feared,  was  hated.  Our  habitual  contempt  for  the  revolu- 
tion-torn Latin- American  republics  blinded  our  eyes  to  this 
hatred  and  accentuated  it  because  it  bred  lack  of  caution 
and  derisive  nicknames. 

162 


THE    UNITED    STATES   AND    LATIN   AMERICA  163 

Then,  at  the  very  moment  when  we  kept  our  promises  to 
Cuba,  we  took  Porto  Rico — took  it  from  Spain  but  without 
consulting  the  Porto  Ricans.  Soon  afterwards,  in  1903,  we 
"took"  Panama.  It  did  not  belong  to  us.  It  belonged  to 
Colombia.  And  we  set  up  the  plea  that  Colombia  was 
anti-social,  that  her  leaders  were  " mountain  bandits,"  that 
we  had  a  mandate  from  civilization  to  take  what  did  not 
belong  to  us.  President  Roosevelt  in  October,  1903, 
drafted  a  letter  to  Congress  proposing  that  we  take  Panama 
by  force.  At  6.00  p.m.,  November  3,  there  was  a  skillfully 
prepared  revolution  on  the  Isthmus.  Our  warships  pre- 
vented the  Colombians  from  attempting  to  suppress  it. 
We  recognized  the  new  Republic  of  Panama  November  6. 
We  promised  to  place  all  countries,  including  this  country, 
on  a  parity  in  the  payment  of  tolls  for  using  the  canal. 
In  the  administration  of  Mr.  Taft  we  undertook  to  exempt 
our  own  coastwise  trade  from  these  tolls.  The  Wilson  ad- 
ministration righted  this  wrong  but  so  far  has  sought  vainly 
to  persuade  Congress  to  vote  $25,000,000  to  Colombia  for 
the  property  taken  from  her. 

Latin- America  followed  these  events  with  keener  interest 
than  we  followed  them.  When  Secretary  Root,  on  a  mis- 
sion of  good- will,  went  to  South  America  in  1906  he  spoke 
excellently  at  Rio  de  Janeiro.  But  the  people  of  South 
America  were  suspicious,  applying  to  us  as  to  all  men  the 
injunction:  "By  their  deeds  shall  ye  know  them." 

The  fall  of  the  Diaz  regime  in  Mexico,  the  accession  and 
murder  of  Madero,  the  usurpation  by  Huerta,  the  long  and 
bloody  revolution,  the  agitation  in  this  country  for  interven- 
tion, our  interest  in  our  big  investments  in  Mexico,  the  devel- 
opment of  rich  oil  fields  there,  the  seizure  of  Vera  Cruz  and 
the  Pershing  expedition  have  increased  the  dread  of  us  in 
Latin  America  and  have  made  the  Monroe  Doctrine  seem 
more  a  danger  than  a  protection. 

Today  a  new,  brief  and  comparatively  bloodless  revolu- 
tion has  caused  a  new  change  in  the  kaleidoscope  and 
brought  with  it  new  problems. 

President  Wilson's  address  at  Mobile  in  October,  1913, 
his  efforts  to  befriend  Mexico  during  the  early  years  of  the 


164  JOHN   F.   MOORS 

long  revolution,  his  refusal  to  be  stampeded  into  war  with 
Mexico  in  1916  were  cheering  incidents  in  the  almost  endless 
story  of  distrust  resulting  from  the  fear  of  aggression.  The 
A.  B.  C.  Conferences  in  1916,  futile  though  they  proved,  were 
evidence  of  the  good-will  in  Latin- America  when  assured  of 
our  respect  and  friendliness. 

It  is  a  sad  commentary  on  our  influence  that  the  further 
the  Latin-Americans  are  from  us  the  happier  they  seem 
to  be.  Chile  and  the  Argentine  are  not  only  prospering  but, 
when  they  were  on  the  verge  of  war  with  each  other,  they 
settled  their  difference  by  a  conference,  instead  of  by  force, 
and  they  melted  their  engines  of  death  and  built  of  them  a 
great  statue  to  Jesus  Christ  and  today  the  Christ  of  the 
Andes  on  a  mountain  summit  three  miles  above  the  level  of 
the  sea,  still  commemorates  that  great  achievement. 

Mexico,  on  the  other  hand,  is  perpetually  in  hot  water. 
And  we  are  always  talking  about  her  and  threatening  her 
and  despising  her  and  investing  in  her  riches.  When  we 
have  invested,  we  have  too  often  insisted  that  the  only 
sound  course  is  to  "clean  her  up."  It  has  become  the  law 
and  the  gospel  with  strong  nations  that  their  citizens  and 
their  citizens'  property  shall  be  protected,  by  fire  and 
sword,  if  need  be,  wherever  such  citizens  and  their  property 
may  be.  The  conception  that  our  citizens  entrust  their 
persons  and  their  property  at  their  own  risk  to  the  laws  and 
conditions  in  weak  and  unsettled  countries  is  widely  looked 
upon  as  unsound  and  ignoble.  Yet  the  transition  from  pro- 
tecting our  innocent  citizens,  to  protecting  our  all  too  ag- 
gressive citizens,  to  championing  their  cause  without  much 
regard  for  the  standards  of  unknown  races  is  not  only  an 
easy  transition  but  one  which  may  be  fraught  with  injus- 
tice, bullying,  violence,  and  finally  with  the  assessment  of 
damages  and  the  acquisition  of  the  weak  nation's  property. 

The  official  attitude  hi  recent  years  of  the  United  States 
toward  Mexico  has  been  admirable  and  was  the  precursor 
of  that  new  diplomacy  which  found  a  fitting  embodiment  hi 
the  fourteen  points.  But  during  these  same  years  the  atti- 
tude of  many  influential  Americans  toward  Mexico  has  been 
irritating  in  the  extreme.  The  admirable  official  attitude 


THE   UNITED   STATES   AND   LATIN   AMERICA  165 

has  been  despised  by  most  men  of  education.  The  exas- 
perating attitude  of  threats  and  contempt  has  been  ac- 
cepted as  the  proper  attitude.  Vast,  fundamental  issues 
are  today  involved  in  what  we  think  and  do  in  regard  to 
Mexico.  The  problems  are  at  our  very  door.  We  cannot 
escape  them.  Shall  we  be  a  kind  friend  and  neighbor,  not 
officious,  but  ready  to  help  when  we  are  asked  to  help,  re- 
specting her  and  her  rights,  using  reason,  not  force,  simply 
because  we  are  superior  in  the  latter,  patient,  unselfish, 
with  all  the  virtues  which  we  profess  hi  our  religion?  Or 
shall  we  throw  all  these  to  the  winds  and  think  first  of  our 
interests  present  and  prospective  in  Mexico,  and,  knowing 
our  strength,  use  it  for  selfish  aims,  leading  our  young  men 
to  slaughter  other  young  men  and  forcing  America  again  to 
fail  the  world  when  moral  leadership  is  most  needed? 

These  questions  should  be  approached,  not  impatiently 
or  scornfully  or  selfishly,  but  respectfully,  discreetly,  and 
with  faith  in  men  however  outwardly  unlike  ourselves. 


COMMON  SENSE  IN  FOREIGN  POLICY 

By  Edwin  M.  Borchard,  Professor  of  Law,  Yale  University 

The  intelligent  appreciation  of  economic  facts  and  an 
understanding  of  the  forces  at  work  in  shaping  interna- 
tional relations  is  my  interpretation  of  common  sense  in 
foreign  policy.  For  the  elaboration  of  my  views  in  this 
respect,  I  shall  ask  your  indulgence. 

The  principal  material  purpose  of  human  activity,  I  take 
it,  is  the  satisfaction  of  economic  wants  by  opening  the  re- 
sources of  the  earth  to  a  wider  distribution  at  lower  cost. 
The  remarkable  advance  in  these  directions  witnessed  in  the 
last  century  by  improved  methods  of  transportation  and 
communication  and  by  the  application  of  machinery  in 
agriculture,  mining  and  manufacture  has  been  unequalled 
in  history.  The  end  and  ami  of  thus  promoting  the  mate- 
rial comfort  and  prosperity  of  mankind  being  assumed  to  be 
true,  conflicts  have  arisen  in  modern  tunes  in  the  methods  of 
bringing  the  aims  to  realization,  either  hi  the  economic  prin- 
ciple pursued  or  in  the  attempt  by  various  groups  to  arro- 
gate to  themselves  advantages  not  conceded  by  other  groups. 
The  effort,  on  the  one  hand,  to  maintain  and  extend  the 
advantage  of  one  group  has  often  run  counter  to  similar 
efforts  of  other  groups. 

Within  the  domain  of  a  nation  this  conflict  of  interest  has 
thus  far  been  fairly  well  adjusted  by  municipal  law.  In  the 
United  States,  such  statutes  as  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Act,  the  Sherman  Act,  and  the  Federal  Trade  Commission 
Act,  designed  to  prevent  unfair  competition,  all  evidence 
the  continued  purpose  of  the  community  to  prevent  un- 
fair advantages  by  one  group,  interest  or  individual  over 
the  other.  However  short  of  perfection  the  system  may 
still  be,  it  has  been  amply  manifested  that  when  competi- 
tion no  longer  adequately  protects  the  interests  of  the  public, 
governmental  regulation  and  even  governmental  ownership 

166 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  167 

emerges  as  a  check  upon  unfair  advantage.  The  police 
power  under  the  Constitution  has  served  to  impose  ever 
greater  burdens  upon  private  property  in  the  interests  of 
the  public  welfare;  and  given  free  discussion  and  a  free  bal- 
lot our  system  is  capable  of  adjusting  itself  to  the  expanding 
needs  of  a  developing  community,  with  its  ever  growing 
demands.  The  internal  struggle  now  proceeding  in  many 
countries  of  the  world  is  a  reflection  of  this  effort  to  adjust  a 
political  system  to  the  increasingly  insistent  demands  of 
important  groups  in  the  community;  and  in  so  far  as  that 
struggle  ceases  to  be  peaceful,  it  indicates  the  maladjust- 
ment of  the  political  and  legal  machinery  to  the  social  or 
economic  demands  of  the  times. 

In  the  international  domain,  we  find  this  clash  of  conflict- 
ing interests  possessed  of  but  few  instruments  for  concilia- 
tion or  adjustment.  Diplomacy,  treaties,  mediation,  com- 
missions of  inquiry,  arbitration,  however  effective  they  may 
have  been  in  preventing  many  conflicts,  and  however  prom- 
ising they  may  be,  have  exerted  but  little  influence  in  avert- 
ing the  trial  by  battle  of  those  larger  economic  issues  which 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  most  modern  wars.  Nations  which 
unhesitatingly  impose  the  restraint  of  law  upon  both  the 
strong  and  the  weak  groups  within  the  state,  decline,  not- 
withstanding Hague  Conferences  and  arbitration  agree- 
ments, to  submit  their  more  important  international  dif- 
ferences to  adjustment  by  peaceful  machinery.  Impatient 
of  such  restraint  when  what  they  deem  then-  "  vital  inter- 
ests" are  involved,  they  plunge  into  reprisals  or  war  as  the 
arbiter  of  the  difference,  and  devote  the  periods  between 
wars  to  the  strengthening  of  alliances  and  physical  resources 
so  as  to  cope  successfully  with  the  prospective  antagonist 
their  very  preparation  frequently  invites.  War,  of  course, 
while  a  recognized  method  of  adjusting  international  dis- 
putes, signifies  in  reality  the  breakdown  of  law,  or  if  you 
will,  the  rule  of  the  jungle.  So  defective  is  our  modern 
civilization  that  at  intervals  all  too  frequent  it  sanctions  in 
approving  or  reluctant  impotence  the  armed  clash  of  whole 
nations. 

Why  is  this?  Is  it  possible  to  prevent  it?  Are  we  going 
forward  or  backward? 


168  EDWIN  M.    BOUCHARD 

Failure  to  understand  the  underlying  causes  of  modern 
conflicts  explains,  in  part,  I  believe,  the  apparent  inability 
to  prevent  them.  Mention  has  been  made  of  the  recent 
enactment  of  municipal  statutes  against  unfair  competition 
in  the  more  advanced  countries,  coming  as  the  outgrowth 
of  a  realization  that  powerful  or  unscrupulous  groups  or 
individuals  seek  to  obtain  advantages  over  others  which  are 
unfair,  under  a  standard  of  business  ethics  created  by  the 
mores  of  our  time.  In  the  international  domain,  on  the 
other  hand,  unfair  competition  flourishes  among  the  great 
powers  in  a  fashion  that  sooner  or  later  must  lead  to  conflict. 
No  statutory  code  declares  it  to  be  unfair;  for  the  attempt 
to  monopolize  the  economic  resources  of  backward  nations 
by  the  creation  of  spheres  of  influence,  mandates,  protec- 
torates or  colonies,  the  effort  to  control  markets,  trade 
routes,  cables  and  coaling  stations,  and  by  tariff  barriers 
to  obtain  preferential  treatment,  discriminate  against  com- 
petitors, or  stimulate  home  industry — all  these  are  deemed 
worthy  manifestations  of  state  activity  looking  to  national 
strength  and  prosperity.  The  fallacy  lies  in  the  fact  that  other 
nations  seeking  like  outlets  and  instruments  for  their  econ- 
omic activity  find  then*  efforts  thwarted  or  hampered  by  an 
advantage  already  gained  or  about  to  be  gamed  by  a  rival 
nation;  or  a  nation  having  secured  control  of  a  particular 
market,  finds  its  predominance  challenged  by  a  new  com- 
petitor. There  being  no  legal  machinery  or  any  federal  or 
international  trade  commission  to  adjust  these  conflicting 
interests,  and  the  issue  indeed  presenting  no  question  of 
legal  right  or  wrong,  each  imperialist  nation  is  driven  by 
necessity  to  safeguard  its  own  success  in  this  continual 
struggle,  by  diplomacy  and  the  force  of  arms,  justifying 
its  efforts  under  the  name  of  self-preservation.  Foreign 
policy  is  fashioned  to  the  maintenance  of  supremacy  in  this 
struggle  of  the  nations,  and  the  fallacy  in  believing  that  any 
ultimate  material  benefit  accrues  to  the  people  by  engaging 
in  this  struggle,  is  what  I  would  denominate  as  the  primary 
manifestation  of  a  want  of  understanding.  Psychological 
repugnance  and  historical  grievances,  to  be  sure,  often 
cooperate  powerfully  in  producing  conflicts,  but  in  this  day 
I  regard  the  economic  factor  as  of  transcendent  importance. 


COMMON  SENSE   IN  FOREIGN  POLICY  169 

The  growth  of  modern  imperialism  is  coincident  with  the 
rise  of  the  industrial  system  and  the  export  of  capital.  Great 
Britain  came  out  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  into  a  new  era  of 
industrial  expansion  and  utilized  her  resources  in  coal  and 
machinery  in  a  happy  combination  with  a  strong  navy  and 
the  then  existing  colonial  system  to  extend  British  influence 
throughout  the  world.  Her  exports  hi  goods  and  capital 
expanded  British  markets  everywhere  and  led  to  that  close 
association  between  the  Foreign  Office  and  the  overseas 
investor  which,  except  in  Latin  America,  has  all  but  insured 
the  investment,  and  would,  but  for  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
have  had  the  same  result  in  Latin  America.  How  far  the 
masses  of  the  British  people  have  benefitted  by  this  policy 
of  overseas  investment  is  questionable,  according  to  Mr. 
C.  K.  Hobson,  the  English  economist. 

I  will  not  undertake  to  detail  the  ramifications  of  the 
alliance  between  finance  and  politics,  but  that  finance  has 
had  a  vital  influence  in  dictating  political  control  no  in- 
formed statesman  or  economist  will  deny.  It  was  around 
1850  that  France  began  to  accumulate  capital  for  foreign 
investment,  and  tangible  evidence  of  its  influence  in  foreign 
policy  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  alliance  between  Russia 
and  France,  which  was  so  important  a  factor  in  the  diplo- 
matic background  of  the  war,  traces  its  origin  to  the  first 
loan  of  500,000,000  francs  by  French  bankers  to  Russia 
in  the  late  eighties.  Further  loans  by  France  were  con- 
ditioned upon  the  use  of  the  money  in  particular  directions. 
Germany  entered  the  race  at  the  end  of  the  seventies  and 
her  rapid  strides  in  combining  commercial  expansion  with 
political  influence  in  the  Near  East,  with  its  threat  to  the 
political  interests  of  Russia  and  England,  had  as  much  to  do 
with  the  causes  of  the  Great  War  as  any  other  single  factor. 
More  recently  Japan  and  the  United  States  have  entered 
the  lists  as  foreign  investors  and  whether  they  can  resist 
the  temptations  of  imperialism,  with  its  dangers  of  conflict 
with  competing  imperialisms,  is  a  question  that  the  next 
decade  or  two  will  answer  for  us. 

Our  own  record  in  the  growth  from  the  agricultural  to 
the  industrial  stage,  and  thence  from  the  mercantile  to 


170  EDWIN   M.    BOUCHARD 

the  financial  stage,  from  the  status  of  exporters  solely  of 
raw  materials  to  exporters  of  manufactured  products  has 
not  been  fraught  with  immediate  political  threats  to  foreign 
powers.  Such  political  effects  as  have  followed  our  quest 
for  world  markets  have  been  confined  principally  to  coun- 
tries in  and  around  the  Caribbean,  and  there  other  factors 
also  entered  into  the  situation.  We  would  probably  not 
be  administering  Haiti  today,  but  for  the  fact  that  France 
threatened  to  intervene  if  we  didn't.  Moreover,  our  con- 
trol in  those  countries,  speaking  generally,  is  not  conducted 
with  any  view  to  an  American  trade  monopoly,  as  the  foreign 
trade  statistics  of  those  countries  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years  will  attest.  Our  Philippine  adventure  was  not  pre- 
meditated but  came  as  one  of  the  unsolicited  consequences  of  a 
successful  war.  On  the  whole,  it  cannot  be  said  that  we  have 
exploited  our  position,  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  if  we 
could  obtain  assurance  against  the  Philippines  falling  into 
the  hands  of  an  imperialist  government,  they  could,  like 
Cuba,  have  their  independence  almost  any  time.  It  is  my 
opinion  that,  taking  conditions  as  they  are,  and  admitting 
many  of  the  mistakes  of  our  responsible  and  irresponsible 
officials,  our  policy  in  Central  America  and  the  Philippines 
as  receivers  in  bankruptcy  or  self-appointed  guardians, 
still  furnishes  one  of  the  cleanest  pages  in  the  history  of 
imperialism.  It  is  a  comparatively  new  game  for  us  and 
was  not  entered  upon  with  premeditation.  We  may  im- 
prove with  further  experience,  or  we  may,  following  Euro- 
pean example,  grow  worse.  The  American  people  should 
be  able  to  control  the  policy  to  be  adopted. 

But  now  new  forces  are  in  operation  and  the  avoidance  of 
international  conflicts  will  require  an  unusual  degree  of  com- 
mon sense  on  the  part  of  the  administration  and  on  the  part 
of  the  people.  Unless  the  people  awake  to  the  importance 
of  foreign  policy  in  its  effect  on  their  personal  welfare,  there 
is  little  hope,  notwithstanding  unproved  machinery,  for 
any  more  sensible  adjustment  of  international  differences 
than  the  recent  past  has  demonstrated.  Some  of  the  more 
obvious  of  the  factors  requiring  attention  and  popular 
vigilance  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  pointing  out  as  I  proceed. 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  171 

We  have  come  out  of  the  Great  War  with  a  trade  balance 
of  some  ten  billions  and  large  loans  to  foreign  governments. 
The  gap  will  be  difficult  to  close.  We  have  already  received 
much  gold  and  bought  back  several  billions  of  our  foreign- 
owned  securities,  thus  reducing  our  foreign  interest  require- 
ments. Our  merchant  marine  will  reduce  our  payments 
abroad  under  this  head.  Being  one  of  the  few  manufac- 
turing countries  whose  industrial  plant  is  apparently  in 
good  condition  our  exportable  surplus  will  doubtless  be 
large  for  many  years.  Countervailing  factors,  of  course, 
are  brought  into  operation  as  a  result  of  these  very  facts. 
The  unprecedented  favorable  trade  balance  has  unbalanced 
exchange  rates  to  such  an  extent  that  European  merchants 
can  buy  from  us  only  by  paying  excessive  prices,  and  that 
has  already  curtailed  our  exports.  If  the  world's  credit 
structure  is  to  remain  unimpaired,  Europe  must  ultimately 
repay  us  in  goods  and  it  would  be  wise  policy  for  many 
reasons,  not  least  of  all,  the  interests  of  American  consumers, 
to  stimulate  such  imports  in  every  way. 

But  one  of  the  obvious  methods  of  squaring  the  account 
is  by  investing  our  accumulated  capital  abroad,  and  this 
process  has  grown  to  unprecedented  proportions  since 
1914.  It  would  be  very  active  today  but  for  the  fact  that  the 
financial  world  has  little  confidence  in  European  stability, 
due,  I  believe,  to  the  economic  errors  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, to  which  I  shall  advert  in  a  moment.  In  the  mean- 
time, our  investments  abroad,  in  Latin-America  and  else- 
where, will  bring  a  large  volume  of  trade  in  their  wake  and 
our  merchant  marine  is  equipped  to  carry  the  products  of 
our  enlarged  manufacturing  capacity  to  all  parts  of  the 
world.  The  adoption  of  a  consistent  foreign  policy  will 
inevitably  become  necessary.  What  form  will  it  take  and 
what  factors  will  enter  into  consideration? 

There  is  now  a  pressing  demand  from  our  large  commer- 
cial and  financial  interests  for  an  expansion  of  our  foreign 
trade  and  of  our  merchant  marine.  Both  results  can  be 
achieved,  but  the  effort  will  encounter  certain  obstacles, 
to  the  negotiation  of  which  foreign  policy  will  have  to  be 
directed.  Just  as  laissez-faire  has  been  forced  into  con- 


172  EDWIN   M.    BOUCHARD 

stantly  smaller  compass  in  domestic  economy,  so  in  inter- 
national commerce  the  same  phenomenon  is  apparent. 
Notwithstanding  the  intimate  relation  between  the  British 
Foreign  Office  and  the  investor,  the  British  trader  until 
lately  enjoyed  a  considerable  measure  of  laissez-faire.  Its 
success  constituted  its  justification.  But  as  German  trade 
in  one  quarter  after  the  other  entered  into  successful  com- 
petition, the  adoption  of  German  foreign  trade  policy  met 
with  greater  favor;  and  it  now  seems  likely  that  the  German 
cartel  system  and  export  associations  and  syndicates  and 
the  plans  for  governmental  and  trade  cooperation  will  to 
a  considerable  extent  be  adopted  by  England  and  other 
exporting  nations.  The  British  Manufacturers  Corpora- 
tion, the  British  Trade  Corporation,  the  reorganized  Board 
of  Trade  with  its  Departments  of  Commerce  and  Industry 
and  Commercial  Intelligence,  the  various  Trades  Commit- 
tees, all  indicate  that  ever-growing  cooperation  between 
government  and  commerce  which  in  its  present  general 
form  is  a  recent  phenomenon  of  foreign  policy.  We  have 
already  indicated  our  adherence  to  the  principle  by  the 
creation  of  such  governmental  organs  as  the  War  Finance 
Corporation  and  the  United  States  Shipping  Board,  and  by 
such  statutes  as  the  Webb  Act  and  the  Edge  Act.  The 
promoting  functions  of  the  State  and  Commerce  Depart- 
ments will  also  doubtless  be  enlarged.  Moreover,  it  is 
common  knowledge  that  for  the  last  half  century  European 
bankers  making  loans  to  governments  have  almost  always 
obtained  the  preliminary  consent  and  worked  in  cooperation 
with  their  Foreign  Offices.  Our  own  State  Department  is 
not  only  consulted  by  American  bankers  in  the  making  of 
foreign  loans,  but  new  loans  made  to  any  country  around 
the  Caribbean  by  any  bankers  are  not  likely  to  be  made 
without  the  acquiescence  of  the  State  Department.  A 
sudden  aversion  to  " dollar  diplomacy"  in  1913  induced  a 
withdrawal  of  the  American  bankers  from  the  Six  Power 
Loan  to  China,  President  Wilson  stating  that  there  should 
be  "no  entangling  foreign  alliances  even  in  respect  to  arrange- 
ments for  supervising  the  financial  compacts  of  weaker 
governments  ....  the  responsibility  of  the  United 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  173 

States  in  the  Six-Power  group  is  obnoxious  to  the  principles 
upon  which  this  Governments  rests."  But  in  1918,  Ameri- 
can participation  seems  no  longer  to  have  been  obnoxious 
to  those  principles,  for  Mr.  Wilson  approved  our  joining 
the  Four-Power  consortium,  committing  this  Government 
to  an  extent  unasked  by  the  bankers  hi  1913.  The  official 
statement  of  the  Department  of  State  published  July  29, 
1918,  reads  hi  part:  "the  American  government  will  be  will- 
ing to  aid  in  every  way  possible  and  to  make  prompt  and 
vigorous  representations  and  to  take  every  possible  step 
to  ensure  the  execution  of  equitable  contracts  made  in  good 
faith  by  its  citizens  in  foreign  lands."  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  more  complete  reversal  of  foreign  policy  than 
is  embodied  in  the  declaration  just  quoted.  Several  pro- 
posals to  refund  the  Honduran  debt  have  been  disapproved 
by  the  Department,  and  similar  disapproval  of  the  Pearson 
oil  concession  in  Colombia,  it  will  be  recalled,  induced 
those  important  British  interests  some  years  ago  to  with- 
draw from  the  field.  We  must  assume  that  this  is  done  by 
virtue  of  a  liberal  interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
and  to  forestall  political  differences;  but  it  indicates  the 
intimate  relation  between  Government  and  private  enter- 
prise which  modern  international  politics  discloses  on  every 
hand. 

To  obtain  as  free  an  outlet  as  possible  for  our  expanding 
commerce  will  require  the  fullest  governmental  cooperation, 
and  diplomacy  will  inevitably  be  involved.  Then  too  will 
come  the  urgent  need  of  those  trained  men  whom  we  now 
find  it  so  difficult  to  attract  to  the  public  service.  As 
European  governments  recover  their  strength  in  competi- 
tion, tariffs  and  preferences  of  various  kinds  will  appear  as 
cards  in  the  game.  The  proposed  imperial  policy  of  Great 
Britain  by  which  trade  between  the  mother  country  and  the 
colony  is  mutually  to  be  promoted  is  a  reminder  of  a  colonial 
policy  which  prevailed  a  century  ago.  Its  enforcement 
today  to  the  disadvantage  of  foreign  powers  is  likely  to 
have  large  political  consequences. 

Within  a  phenomenally  short  time  we  have  become  the 
second  maritime  power,  with  nearly  ten  million  tons  of 


174  EDWIN   M.    BOUCHARD 

shipping.  As  it  is  deemed  important  that  American  com- 
merce should  not  have  to  rely  on  foreign  bottoms,  and  as  it 
is  known  that  American  ships  are,  by  reason  of  fairer  treat- 
ment of  crew  and  better  pay  to  builders,  more  expensive 
to  operate  than  foreign  ships,  methods  are  now  being  pro- 
posed to  insure  us  against  American  ships  escaping  to  foreign 
flags  and  to  promote  American  shipbuilding.  A  proposal 
which  is  now  meeting  favor  is  to  give  to  goods  imported 
in  our  vessels  a  tariff  rebate,  and  thereupon  abrogate  numer- 
ous treaties.  The  device  may  prove  distasteful  to  foreign 
governments,  which  may  adopt  countervailing  restrictions. 
For  example,  it  is  conceivable  that  coaling  stations  in 
various  parts  of  the  world  may  refuse  to  sell  bunker  coal 
to  American  vessels;  or  foreign  countries  may  discriminate 
against  American  goods  or  vessels.  It  is  true  that  our 
distinctive  interpretation  of  the  most-favored-nation  clause 
has  not  had  serious  results,  and  it  may  be  that  the  discrim- 
ination proposed  would  not  encounter  retaliatory  measures; 
but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  under  present  conditions, 
when  the  recent  belligerents  are  exerting  every  effort  to  re- 
cover and  strengthen  then1  economic  position  such  a  measure 
as  that  proposed  will  not  go  unchallenged.  That  it  con- 
stitutes a  decided  violation  of  Point  Three  (on  "economic 
barriers")  of  the  famous  Fourteen,  has  been  overlooked  by 
some  of  its  advocates. 

Again,  a  manufacturing  and  trading  nation  must  have 
assured  access  to  basic  raw  materials,  and  the  quest  for  and 
control  of  raw  materials,  such  as  coal,  iron  and  oil  are  likely 
to  weigh  heavily  hi  the  shaping  of  foreign  policy  during  the 
next  few  decades.  The  pressure  of  a  growing  industry  was 
combined  with  the  revival  of  a  historic  claim  to  induce 
Germany  to  annex  the  iron  fields  of  Lorraine  in  1871,  and 
unless  her  demand  for  raw  materials  is  satisfied  in  Russia 
or  elsewhere,  we  are  likely  to  see  considerable  trouble  in 
the  future  over  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  More  recently  oil 
has  loomed  up  as  the  motive  power  of  the  future,  and  the 
desire  to  obtain  an  assured  supply  has  inspired  much  of  the 
diplomacy  of  the  recent  past  and  will  doubtless  influence 
greatly  the  immediate  future.  It  has  not  gone  unnoticed, 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  175 

I  assume,  that  Mesopotamia  and  Syria  have  not  wanted  for 
mandatories,  whereas  barren  Armenia  seems  to  have  a  good 
deal  of  difficulty  in  finding  one.  Indeed,  it  is  common 
knowledge  that  Great  Britain,  always  the  most  foresighted 
of  nations,  has  adopted  a  governmental  oil  policy  by  which 
she  hopes  to  control  for  British  interests  the  oil  supplies 
of  all  British  possessions,  from  the  United  Kingdom  to  the 
smallest  mandatory,  and  of  as  many  other  nations  as  possi- 
ble, and  expects  to  "buy  into"  such  of  the  foreign  oil  com- 
panies as  she  can.  An  article  in  Spelling's  Magazine  last 
year  explained  the  policy  frankly;  and  more  recently  Mr. 
Walter  Hume  Long  of  the  British  Cabinet  has  given  us  a 
very  convincing  expression  of  his  views  on  the  subject. 
When  it  is  recalled  that  our  Geological  Survey  estimates 
that  our  own  oil  resources,  at  present  rates  of  consumption, 
will  be  exhausted  in  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  that  our 
quest  for  oil  must  more  than  ever  be  directed  toward  foreign 
fields.  If  there  we  encounter  conflicting  claims  previously 
staked  out  by  other  nations,  or  if  we  are  placed  in  the 
position  of  having  to  buy  our  oil  from  more  favored  nations 
at  their  price  and  conditions,  its  effect  on  our  foreign  policy 
will  be  readily  apparent. 

II 

With  these  facts  in  mind,  I  wish  to  direct  attention  to  the 
Treaty  of  Peace  and  to  some  of  the  events  and  phenomena  of 
current  history  in  order  to  point  out  what  seem  to  me  to  be 
the  lessons  of  the  day  in  foreign  policy.  It  is  my  belief 
that  by  an  unbiased  discussion  and  consideration  of  facts 
and  the  effort  to  draw  honest  conclusions  from  them  our 
government  and  our  people  may  be  enabled  to  avoid  some 
of  the  more  obvious  pitfalls  of  the  immediate  future.  If, 
in  the  expression  of  my  opinions,  I  should  challenge  some 
popular  beliefs  or  what  seem  to  me  to  be  illusions,  I  trust 
my  ideas  will  be  received  under  the  admitted  limitation,  so 
ably  expressed  by  Mr.  Justice  Holmes,  "that  the  best  test 
of  truth  is  the  power  of  the  thought  to  get  itself  accepted  in 
the  competition  of  the  market." 


176  EDWIN   M.    BOECHARD 

It  is  my  conviction  that  the  American  people  have  less 
knowledge  of  foreign  affairs  than  any  people  of  Europe, 
due  partly  to  our  traditional  isolation  from  international 
politics  and  partly  to  defective  education.  This  innocence, 
combined  with  the  crusading  instinct  of  a  pioneer  in  polit- 
ical liberty,  makes  our  people  peculiarly  susceptible  to  a 
foreign  policy  of  idealistic  phrase-making  and  to  the  mach- 
inations of  the  propagandist.  An  examination  of  the  facts 
and  the  effort  to  think  upon  them  independently,  so  promi- 
nent in  our  political  literature  on  foreign  affairs  down  to 
1860,  seems  now  to  be  exceptional  only.  Emotion  seems  to 
have  replaced  logic  in  the  consideration  of  events.  Per- 
haps the  movies  or  the  kaleidoscopic  daily  newspaper  have 
something  to  do  with  this  responsiveness  to  emotional 
stimulus  and  want  of  critical  analysis.  At  all  events,  it 
has  not  yet  penetrated  the  popular  consciousness  that,  as 
I  believe,  the  professed  purposes  of  "making  the  world 
safe  for  democracy,"  defeating  militarism,  promoting  a 
lasting  peace,  preventing  war  and  establishing  a  new  prin- 
ciple of  cooperation  among  the  nations  to  bring  about  these 
ends  are,  in  the  realm  of  fact,  conspicuous  by  their  absence  in 
the  terms  of  the  settlement.  The  terms  of  the  Treaty  proper 
impress  the  conviction  that  while  preponderating  force  can 
terminate  a  war,  as  John  Bassett  Moore  has  expressed  it, 
it  is  no  guaranty  of  peace.  Indeed,  one  hazards  little  in 
predicting  that  there  is  more  war  than  peace  likely  to  issue 
from  the  treaties  of  1919,  with  their  Balkanization  of  Eastern 
Europe  and  then-  challenge  of  fundamental  principles  of 
economics,  as  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Vanderlip.  Efforts  to 
amend  the  treaties  seem  to  produce  a  hostile  reaction  from 
one  or  other  of  the  Allies.  The  authors  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  creating  their  own  major  premise  in  disregard  of 
the  substantive  facts  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  and  the 
minor  treaties,  and  of  the  existing  international  economic 
system,  have  devised  an  elaborate  machinery  to  stop  the 
outbreak  of  war  after  its  causes  have  been  allowed,  as  hi 
the  past,  freely  to  operate  and  ferment  into  hostility.  How- 
ever sympathetic  we  may  be  to  the  idea,  the  superstructure 
is  out  of  harmony  with  its  foundations,  and  this  seems  to  me 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  177 

an  insuperable  obstacle  to  success.  That  we  have  had 
similar  leagues  in  the  past,  professing  the  same  purposes, 
has  been  apparently  dismissed  from  consideration,  and  the 
greater  enthusiasm  and  credence  aroused  by  this  league  is 
attributable,  I  believe,  to  a  natural  tendency,  in  time  of 
crisis,  to  grasp  at  a  panacea.  The  founders  profess  in  a 
tense  moment  of  history  to  have  established  a  League  for 
Peace,  when  they  were  unable,  after  full  deliberation,  to 
establish  such  a  comparatively  unimportant  body  as  an 
International  Prize  Court.  It  is  already  apparent  to  many 
students  of  international  affairs  that  the  League  of  Nations, 
cordially  as  we  may  endorse  its  announced  purposes,  is,  as 
I  fear,  essentially  a  military  alliance  of  the  principal  victors, 
attracting  to  themselves  a  considerable  number  of  neutrals 
who  expect  to  profit  by  the  association.  Time  will  tell 
whether  the  history  of  this  alliance  will  differ  greatly  from 
that  of  its  predecessors.  Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  it 
will  last  as  long  as  the  interests  of  the  major  members  re- 
main identical. 

Can  we  find  any  present  justification  for  a  hope  of  peace? 
Are  we  going  forward  or  backward?  The  question  deserves 
passing  consideration.  It  was  fairly  generally  accepted 
during  the  war  that  our  only  chance  of  prolonged  peace  lay 
in  disarmament,  and  the  Covenant  met  that  conviction  by 
making  provision  therefor.  With  the  enemy  disarmed,  the 
popular  mind  was  encouraged  in  the  belief  that  disarma- 
ment might  be  realized.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  tendencies, 
I  submit,  are  all  the  other  way.  The  imperialist  nations, 
notwithstanding  the  best  of  intentions  and  the  pressure 
from  taxpayers,  do  not  dare  to  disarm  for  fear  of  losing 
their  place  in  the  sun  and  in  the  intensive  competition  for 
markets  and  raw  materials  which  is  now  in  process  of  de- 
velopment, a  competition  which  at  any  time  may  require 
military  support.  Each  nation  has  a  satisfactory  reason, 
conclusive  upon  its  national  conscience,  why  disarmament 
is  impossible  for  it,  although  it  would  lend  hearty  encour- 
agement to  the  disarmament  of  other  countries.  I  do  not 
charge  this  to  evil  influence  in  Government.  The  funda- 
mental instinct  of  self-preservation,  under  the  system  of 


178  EDWIN   M.   BOUCHARD 

international  rivalry,  motivates  the  policy.  The  fault  is 
a  manifestation  of  the  weakness  of  the  international  order, 
in  which  I  can,  with  the  best  of  intention,  find  no  tangible 
evidence  of  improvement. 

We  were  encouraged  to  believe  that  international  law 
would  be  strengthened  by  the  Peace.  The  result,  I  venture 
to  believe,  is  quite  the  contrary.  Tune  forbids  a  detailed 
analysis  of  the  Treaty  in  this  regard;  but  attention  may  be 
called  to  one  of  the  many  dangerous  precedents  adopted  in 
the  Treaty.  While  it  was  proper  to  punish  the  German 
Empire  for  its  admitted  violations  of  law,  the  victors  should 
themselves  have  manifested  greater  respect  for  the  restraints 
imposed  by  law  and  long-established  international  practice. 
For  law  is  intended  to  bind  the  strong  as  well  as  the  weak. 
Since  1815,  the  doctrine  that  private  property  is  immune 
from  seizure  to  satisfy  public  obligations,  has  been  deemed 
a  fixed  principle.  It  was  an  application  of  a  distinction, 
incidental  to  the  advance  of  civilization  and  enunciated 
in  a  classic  phrase  of  Rousseau,  between  the  public  forces 
of  the  state  and  the  private  citizen.  While  the  war  had 
done  much  to  wipe  away  the  distinction,  it  was  a  shock  to 
find  that  the  Treaty  adopts  the  principle  of  the  practical 
confiscation  of  private  enemy  property  and  investments. 
The  danger  in  this  precedent  can  hardly  be  overemphasized. 
Not  only  does  it  subject  every  foreign  investment  to  the 
precarious  contingencies  of  war  and  peace,  from  which  it 
should  be  completely  removed,  but  it  constitutes  an  assault 
from  above  upon  the  sanctity  of  private  property  at  a  time 
when  that  institution,  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  our 
social  structure,  is  being  challenged  from  below  in  a  degree 
never  before  known.  Should  the  principle  prevail,  dis- 
armament becomes  more  remote  than  ever,  for  not  only 
the  integrity  of  public  but  of  private  property  would  now 
depend  upon  success  in  arms.  This  is  only  one  of  the 
many  steps  backward  which  in  my  opinion  the  Treaty  has 
sanctioned. 

Other  recent  phenomena  likewise  merit  consideration. 
Prominent  among  these  is  the  anti-alien  legislation  of  many 
countries  designed  to  keep  out  the  foreign  emigrant  and 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  179 

the  foreigner's  business.  This  will  probably  have  consider- 
able future  effect.  The  period  between  1880  and  1914  had 
witnessed  a  freedom  of  migration  and  economic  activity 
which  made  overpopulation  easily  dilutable  throughout  the 
world  and  gave  ready  opportunity  by  economic  freedom  and 
liberality  of  corporation  laws  to  the  mobility  of  capital  and 
entrepreneurs.  The  period  since  the  war  has  witnessed  a 
reversion  to  the  restrictive  policy  of  the  18th  and  early  19th 
centuries.  Such  measures  as  the  Paris  Economic  Reso- 
lutions and  the  Balfour  Report,  the  British  Non-ferrous 
Metal  Industry  Act  and  similar  measures  adopted  in  various 
degree  and  kind  by  other  countries,  all  designed  to  prevent 
competition  from  more  favored  or  skillful  producers  and 
promote  home  or  strategic  industries  for  the  purpose  of 
achieving  economic  self-sufficiency  and  independence  from 
reliance  upon  foreign  supplies,  not  only  increase  the  burden 
resting  upon  consumers  but  constitute  measures  of  economic 
warfare  which  are  likely  to  promote  political  hostility.  I 
sympathize  with  the  unfortunate  dilemma  of  the  gentle- 
men who  are  responsible  for  the  Treaty — to  punish  Germany 
adequately  and  obtain  reparation  and  yet  preserve  peace 
and  the  economic  stability  of  Europe.  On  the  horns  of 
that  dilemma,  Europe  is  now  impaled.  However  much  the 
situation  excuses  their  shortsightedness,  the  lessons  of  the 
last  year  and  a  half  should  have  warned  them  of  what  in 
all  probability  lies  before. 

Certain  obvious  truths  require  brief  mention  in  the  correct 
public  appreciation  of  an  enlightened  foreign  policy.  First, 
the  assumption  that  your  own  motives  are  always  higher 
and  purer  than  those  of  others  may  be  soothing  to  the  con- 
science, but  carries  no  conviction  to  your  opponents  or 
necessarily  to  third  parties.  Every  act  of  imperialistic 
expansion  is  accompanied  by  invocations  on  the  altar  of 
self-sacrifice.  Its  motive  will  usually  be  found  in  a  service 
to  "humanity,"  a  word  used  or  abused  in  recent  years  with 
poetic  license.  For  example,  Japan  a  few  days  ago  in  a 
proclamation  opposing  a  separate  state  in  Siberia  asserted 
"that  Japan  will  not  tolerate  in  any  country  close  to  Japan 
any  political  organization  designed  to  interfere  with  world 


180  EDWIN   M.    BOUCHARD 

peace  and  to  defy  humanity."  Those  who  invoke  our  divine 
mission  to  "clean  up  Mexico"  doubtless  are  comforted  by 
the  air  of  self-righteousness  embodied  in  the  proposal  and 
easily  overlook  some  of  its  more  sinister  implications. 
Again,  no  war  since  1815,  according  to  the  usual  statements 
of  historians  and  statesmen  of  the  respective  belligerents, 
has  been  anything  but  a  war  of  defense.  Military  alliances 
are  always  characterized  as  "  defensive." 

Secondly,  the  ability  to  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us 
seems  particularly  essential.  The  interpretation  by  the 
Senate  majority  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  arrogating  to  our- 
selves to  the  exclusion  of  the  League  of  Nations  any  privi- 
lege of  interference  in  Latin-American  disputes  has  aroused 
a  storm  of  protest  in  intellectual  circles  among  our  sister 
republics.  Our  long  delay  in  liquidating  the  Colombian 
obligation  and  conditioning  its  discharge  upon  reciprocal 
advantage  has  been  generally  disapproved  throughout  the 
southern  continent.  Our  control  over  certain  Central  Amer- 
ican and  Caribbean  countries,  not,  I  believe,  fully  under- 
stood, has  done  much  to  impugn  our  motives  in  Latin 
America.  Our  shifting  and  unintelligent  attitude  toward 
Mexico,  sometimes  dignified  by  calling  it  our  Mexican 
policy,  has  weakened  our  prestige  in  Latin  America.  Indeed, 
should  the  counsels  of  armed  intervention  ultimately  pre- 
vail, we  may  find  a  repercussion  throughout  Latin  America 
which  will  embody  the  first  consistent  challenge  to  our 
interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  may  involve  us 
hi  conflict  with  other  powers.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
Latin  America,  while  conceding  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
properly  serves  to  keep  European  political  control  out  of 
America,  does  not  admit  any  corollary  by  which  United 
States  control  is  to  be  substituted.  One  step  in  diplomacy 
leads  to  the  next,  and  the  world  is  now,  more  than  ever 
before,  a  house  of  cards.  Had  Austria  appreciated  this 
fact,  the  world  war  would  probably  not  have  occurred 
in  1914.  Moreover,  reliance  upon  permanent  friendship 
among  nations  is  likely  to  prove  most  tenuous  in  tunes  of 
test,  if  history  has  any  meaning.  While  deep-seated 
hostility  unfortunately  is  a  common  phenomenon,  such  as 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  181 

the  eternal  feud  between  France  and  Germany,  the  much- 
vaunted  ties  of  friendship  are  easily  broken  when  political 
conditions  require.  Another  phenomenon  is  the  belief, 
apparently  entertained  in  high  quarters,  that  all  peoples 
can  accommodate  themselves  or  mould  their  institutions 
to  fit  our  Constitution.  It  is  a  manifestation  of  the  passion 
for  uniformity  often  nurtured  by  illiberal  minds.  It  has 
much  to  do  with  the  misfortunes  of  Mexico.  The  Constitu- 
tion among  us  has  experienced  changes  which  have  altered 
much  of  its  original  conception,  and  properly  so,  for  it 
could  not  survive  if  it  could  not  adjust  itself  to  the  genius 
of  each  succeeding  age  and  its  social  demands.  But  to 
impose  it  on  other  peoples  to  whose  institutions  it  does  not 
respond,  is  likely  to  produce  friction  and  not  peace. 

Finally,  a  new  factor  in  foreign  policy,  of  exceptional 
importance,  requires  intelligent  consideration  to  avoid 
misguidance.  I  refer  to  the  press  and  organized  propa- 
ganda. Never  before  in  history  has  the  world  been  sub- 
jected to  so  much  misinformation,  carefully  prepared  to 
advance  a  political  cause.  With  the  skillful  aid  of  an  official 
censorship  which  surpassed  all  military  needs  in  the  sup- 
pression of  facts,  the  people  have  been  almost  helpless  in  their 
effort  to  learn  the  truth.  The  sources  and  channels  of  the 
news  were  polluted.  Diplomacy  has  found  the  department 
of  propaganda  as  essential  an  adjunct  as  the  army  and  navy, 
and  against  its  machinations  the  struggle  is  difficult.  I  do 
not  condemn  the  press  too  severely,  for  often  they  are  as 
much  sinned  against  as  sinning.  Were  I  to  characterize 
the  position  in  my  own  language,  I  would  not  be  so  severe 
as  the  expert  whom  I  shall  take  the  liberty  to  quote,  but  I 
believe  it  well  for  our  people  to  ponder  the  words  of  such  an 
authority  as  Mr.  Charles  Grant  Miller,  lately  editor  of  the 
Cleveland  Plain  Dealer.  He  says  in  the  trade  journal, 
Editor  and  Publisher : 

For  five  years  there  has  been  a  world-wide  famine  in  facts. 
Truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  about  any- 
thing of  grave  public  interest,  seems  to  have  disappeared  from  the 
face  of  the  earth.  The  date  line  is  no  longer  any  sign  of  the  real 
source  of  news.  Assertion  is  little  indication  of  the  truth.  The 
news  of  Russia,  the  Balkans,  the  Bosphorus,  and  Central  Europe 


182  EDWIN  M.    BOUCHARD 

mostly  originates  in  London  or  is  trimmed  to  London's  shifting 
interests;  tidings  of  conditions  in  England,  France  and  Italy  are 
carefully  strained  through  the  foreign  loan  centers  of  Wall  Street; 
and  where  all  the  rest  of  the  worldful  of  interested  if  not  interest- 
ing misinformation  comes  from  the  Lord  only  knows. 

The  only  defense  against  these  forces  of  perversion  is  the 
cultivation  of  intelligent  opinion  by  a  critical  press  and 
public.  Whether  that  end  can  be  achieved  I  am  not  sure, 
for  the  task,  in  face  of  the  prevailing  adverse  conditions, 
is  very  nearly  insuperable.  In  foreign  affairs,  our  public  in 
general  is  so  devoid  of  any  background  of  information  that 
the  professional  propagandist  has  a  fairly  easy  task.  The 
only  safeguard  lies  in  education  of  the  people,  itself  made 
difficult  by  the  propagandist,  and  in  the  development  of  a 
body  of  journalists  and  editors  who  will  manifest  at  least 
as  much  regard  for  the  interests  and  good  name  of  their 
own  country  as  they  do  for  the  interests  and  policies  of  other 
countries. 

Appreciation  of  these  facts  and  forces,  I  believe,  is  es- 
sential to  the  development  of  an  intelligent  foreign  policy. 
Unless  the  economic  foundation  of  international  relations  is 
better  understood,  there  will  always  be  danger  of  the  falsifica- 
tion of  issues  and  the  confusion  of  public  opinion  by  astute 
or  irresponsible  politicians  and  by  emotional  or  uninformed 
journalists.  Such  understanding  will  also  serve  to  give  a 
healthier  and  more  reasoned  direction  to  our  collaborative 
efforts  in  the  building  of  a  more  stable  international  order. 
Instead  of  carrying  out  policies  thought  out  for  us  in  foreign 
capitals  and  ostensibly  founded  on  permanent  moral  or  politi- 
cal principles,  we  shall  be  able  to  contribute  to  the  promotion 
of  the  general  welfare  by  a  sound  judgment  of  the  present 
effect  and  probable  future  consequences  of  our  foreign  policy. 
The  necessity  for  enlightenment  in  this  respect  was  never 
more  apparent  than  now.  I  do  not  believe  that  in  modern 
times  the  world  has  faced  a  greater  crisis  than  that  before 
which  we  now  stand.  A  continuation  of  the  unenlighten- 
ment  from  which  the  present  governments  of  Europe  seems 
unable  to  escape  is  almost  certain  to  lead  to  future  wars,  an 
eventuality  which  would  threaten  not  only  present  political 


COMMON   SENSE   IN   FOREIGN   POLICY  183 

systems,  but  the  economic  system  as  well.  The  intelligent 
cooperation  of  the  world's  economic  statesmen  seems  to  me, 
therefore,  imperative,  if  we  are  to  avert  the  dangers  ahead. 
Mere  political  cooperation — at  best  temporary  and  fluctuat- 
ing, and  never  sufficiently  inf  ormed,  impartial  or  f arsighted — 
will  not  solve  the  immediate  problem.  I  would  not  oppose 
collaboration  by  this  Government  in  any  cooperative  effort, 
by  common  counsel  or  definite  action,  calculated  to  relieve 
the  periodic  tensions  produced  by  the  present  international 
competitive  system,  with  its  absence  of  all  restraint  upon 
unfair  competition;  and  I  am  even  hopeful  that  some 
day  the  world  may  see  a  centralized  body  appointed  by 
the  nations  with  authority  to  allocate  raw  materials  and 
capital  according  to  economic  needs.  Such  an  institution 
would,  I  believe,  more  nearly  solve  the  problem  of  war  than 
any  now  in  existence.  But  now  and  at  all  times  a  foreign 
policy  informed  by  a  major  premise  of  fact  and  not  fancy 
is  essential  to  the  welfare  of  the  nation. 


THE  CARIBBEAN  POLICY  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES1 

By  William  R.  Shepherd,  Ph.D.,  L.H.D.,  Professor  of 
History,  Columbia  University 

Until  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  the  people  of  this  country 
knew  of  the  great  sea  that  lies  to  the  southward  as  a  neigh- 
boring expanse  of  waters  girdled  with  palm-treed  shores 
and  dotted  with  islands  innumerable,  glistening  in  manifold 
hues  under  the  rays  of  a  tropical  sun.  It  was  fabled  as  a 
region  once  productive  of  rakish  buccaneers  and  later  of 
swaggering  revolutionists.  In  its  political  firmament  each 
of  the  various  and  variable  republics  that  it  contained  was 
presumed  to  occupy  a  separate  star  revolving  through 
international  space — with  as  many  revolutions  per  minute 
as  might  seem  desirable.  From  its  exuberant  soil  sprang 
the  toothsome  sugar-cane,  the  aromatic  coffee  and  tobacco 
and  the  delectable  fruits  that  diversified  the  tastes  of 
temperate  climes.  An  area  where  nature  did  as  it  pleased 
and  man  did  likewise,  amid  scenes  both  primitive  and  idyllic, 
it  was  a  geographical  expression  that  meant  little  outside 
of  books  and  palates.  Certain  of  our  statesmen  of  old,  to 
be  sure,  had  cast  a  wistful  glance  at  an  island  or  two  and 
even  bits  of  mainland,  as  suitable  places  of  sojourn  for 
evanescent  ambitions,  but  the  region  continued  nevertheless 
to  lie  beyond  the  rim  of  our  public  consciousness. 

Suddenly  hi  1895  the  Caribbean  hove  into  sight.  The 
Monroe  Doctrine  awoke  startled  from  its  slumbers  in  the 
realm  of  the  more  or  less  theoretical,  and  an  insurrection 
arose  to  shatter  the  last  vestige  of  an  ancient  colonial 
grandeur  hi  the  New  World.  Out  of  a  dispute  over  the 

1  In  this  paper  an  effort  will  be  made  to  state  the  problem  and  to  indicate 
four  policies  that  might  be  adopted.  Of  these  policies  only  the  first,  as 
the  one  that  seems  to  correspond  to  the  actual  trend  of  events,  will  be 
discussed  at  length. 

184 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  185 

boundary  between  Venezuela  and  British  Guiana  and  out 
of  a  revolt  of  Cubans  against  the  dominion  of  Spain  have 
come  forth  in  the  brief  period  of  twenty-five  years  a  series 
of  consequences  for  the  United  States,  of  which  even  now 
as  a  people  we  have  but  scant  appreciation.  What  we  had 
fancied  peculiar  to  the  expansive  tendencies  of  European 
nations  in  the  remoter  parts  of  Africa,  Asia  and  the  archi- 
pelagoes of  the  Pacific  has  become  a  reality  in  our  own 
career.  A  region  near  in  space  but  hitherto  isolate  in 
thought  has  been  converted  into  a  sphere  of  influence  for 
this  country.  The  Caribbean  Sea  has  become  an  American 
Mediterranean,  if  not  altogether  an  American  lake. 

In  and  around  this  great  sea  to  the  southward  are 
islands  and  mainlands  amounting  hi  extent  to  over  1,300,000 
square  miles,  or  more  than  a  third  that  of  the  United  States 
itself.  They  may  be  said  to  stretch  like  a  giant  chain  all 
the  way  from  Bermuda,  580  miles  east  of  North  Carolina, 
down  to  the  northern  coast  of  South  America,  and  thence 
up  to  Guatemala,  450  miles  south  of  a  point  about  midway 
between  Texas  and  Florida.  Here  under  fifteen  national 
flags  are  four  political  groups.  They  consist  of  American 
dependencies,  what  are  virtually  American  protectorates, 
independent  republics  and  European  colonies.  To  the  first 
group,  of  course,  belong  Porto  Rico  and  the  Virgin  Islands. 
The  second  is  divisible  into  three  classes,  namely:  states 
like  Cuba  and  Panama,  which  have  a  government  of  their 
own,  subject  to  certain  specified  limitations  that  we  have 
seen  fit  to  impose;  states  like  Haiti  and  Nicaragua,  which 
also  have  a  government  of  their  own,  though  subject  in  the 
one  case  to  a  similarly  specified  but  considerably  more 
stringent  control  on  our  part  than  is  true  of  the  class  pre- 
ceding, and  in  the  other  case  to  a  supervision  looser  but 
quite  as  effective;  and  a  state  called  the  Dominican  Re- 
public, which  has  no  government  at  all  of  its  own.  To  be 
sure  we  maintain  a  solemn  humbug  of  an  international 
relationship  with  it  by  having  a  Dominican  envoy  extra- 
ordinary and  minister  plenipotentiary  resident  at  Washing- 
ton and  an  American  diplomat  of  the  same  rank  and  title 
dwelling  in  the  city  of  Santo  Domingo,  but  the  directing 


186  WILLIAM   B.    SHEPHERD 

word  of  an  American  naval  officer  is  law  in  that  land. 
Doubtless  the  arrangement  has  its  advantages,  hi  that  the 
American  director  and  the  American  diplomat  can  converse 
in  a  language  mutually  intelligible  and  entertain  views 
that  are  fairly  identical!  The  third  group  is  composed  of 
the  Central  American  republics  of  Guatemala,  Honduras, 
El  Salvador  and  Costa  Rica,  where  the  influence  of  the 
United  States  has  been  more  or  less  patent  at  tunes,  and 
the  two  South  American  republics  of  Colombia  and  Vene- 
zuela. The  fourth  is  made  up  of  the  insular  and  continental 
colonies  of  Great  Britain,  France  and  the  Netherlands. 

Out  of  this  Caribbean  area,  following  a  plan  of  events 
as  they  emerged,  we  have  assembled  on  a  small  scale  a 
political  and  economic  conglomerate  that,  like  its  huge 
British  compeer  in  the  world  at  large,  is  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made.  We  appear  even  to  have  been  living 
up  to  the  best  traditions  of  our  erstwhile  motherland,  by 
gathering  it  all  up  hi  spells  of  absentmindedness.  In  putting 
it  together  our  course  of  action  reveals  something  of  the 
equally  British  "unity  in  diversity."  We  seem  also  to  have 
grasped  and  applied  the  meaning  of  the  famous  answer  of 
a  British  minister  who,  when  asked  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons what  reason  Great  Britain  had  for  holding  Egypt, 
replied:  "that  of  being  in  a  position  to  give  the  khedive 
authoritative  advice!" 

Without  attempting  either  a  logical  or  a  chronological 
order  of  presentation,  since  neither  would  bring  with  it 
either  clarity  or  consistency  in  the  essential  absence  of  both, 
a  list  hi  outline  of  the  more  obvious  of  the  heterogeneous 
processes  at  work  might  be  offered.  It  would  include: 
applications  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  both  as  it  was  and 
as  it  has  grown  to  be;  the  determination  of  boundaries; 
the  prevention  of  filibustering;  the  annexation  of  territory 
by  conquest  and  by  purchase;  aid  hi  the  establishment  of 
two  republics,  and  the  temporary  administration  of  one 
of  them;  the  acquisition  of  a  canal  zone,  as  well  as  an  option 
on  a  second  canal  route,  and  an  attempt  to  secure  a  third, 
asserting  thus  a  claim  to  sole  ownership  of  potentially 
competitive  routes  hi  the  vicinity;  the  actual  building  of 


CARIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  187 

a  canal;  the  acquisition  further  of  islands  and  harbors  to 
be  used  as  naval  stations;  the  military  as  well  as  diplomatic 
protection  of  persons  and  property,  both  foreign  and  Ameri- 
can; the  restoration  and  maintenance  of  order,  including  the 
reservation  of  a  right  to  intervene  for  the  purpose;  the 
establishment  of  a  native  constabulary  under  American 
officers;  the  placing  of  limitations  on  the  amount  of  indebted- 
ness which  a  republic  might  incur;  a  course  of  financial 
rehabilitation  carried  actually  to  the  point  of  putting  re- 
publics into  the  hands  of  a  receiver;  mediation  between 
belligerent  states;  help  hi  the  formation  of  a  species  of 
federation  of  republics  under  moral  supervision;  intervention 
for  the  purpose  of  insuring  fair  elections  and  the  enforce- 
ment of  rules  of  sanitation,  both  physical  and  moral;  a 
refusal  to  recognize  presidents  who  had  gained  their  positions 
by  a  resort  to  violence,  the  diplomatic  blocking  of  grants 
of  economic  concessions  to  Europeans,  and  the  destruction 
of  the  government  of  one  republic  and  the  imposition  of 
varying  types  of  restriction  upon  the  governments  of  others. 
To  all  such  activities  of  an  official  character  must  be  added 
the  spread  and  diversification  of  commercial,  industrial  and 
financial  enterprises  on  the  part  of  American  citizens  and 
corporations,  weaving  ever  closer  and  closer  the  economic 
network  that  binds  the  Caribbean  lands  to  the  United 
States.  Not  the  proximity  of  these  lands  alone,  but  the 
nature  of  their  tclimate  and  soil  and  the  wealth  of  their 
resources  in  general  render  them  of  incalculable  value  to 
us.  They  constitute  a  tropical  belt  similar  to  that  which 
European  nations  have  acquired  long  since  in  other  parts 
of  the  world  and  have  found  altogether  desirable.  They 
are  so  many  natural  markets  lying  upon  one  of  the  greatest 
commercial  highways  of  the  present  and  future — to  and 
from  the  Panama  Canal.  From  them  come  raw  materials 
and  secondary  foodstuffs  requisite  for  our  factories  and 
exchangeable  for  our  basic  foodstuffs  and  manufactured 
articles.  They  have  become  localities,  also,  for  the  invest- 
ment of  American  capital  under  circumstances  that  may 
invite  the  exercise  of  political  influence  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree. 


188  WILLIAM  R.   SHEPHERD 

Though  all  of  the  Central  American  countries  in  par- 
ticular, except  El  Salvador,  front  on  both  the  Pacific  and 
the  Caribbean,  their  economic  outlook  on  the  whole  is 
directed  toward  the  Caribbean.  Tropical  fruit  thrives  most 
abundantly  in  the  lowlands  on  the  Caribbean  side.  Here 
too  the  sugar-plantations  and  the  forests  of  hardwoods 
and  rubber  are  mainly  accessible.  With  the  construction 
of  interoceanic  railways  and  the  growing  use  of  agricultural 
machinery,  the  commerce  that  springs  from  the  steady 
development  of  the  interior  tends  to  flow  out  of  Caribbean 
ports  that  serve  as  feeders  for  New  Orleans,  New  York  and 
other  American  seaboard  centers.  No  small  percentage  of 
Central  American  trade,  furthermore,  has  been  derived 
from  investments  made  by  American  corporations  and 
individuals.  All  this  would  show  that,  quite  apart  from 
political  influence,  the  currents  of  commerce  hi  this  area, 
as  elsewhere  hi  the  Caribbean,  set  toward  the  United  States, 
and  by  it  are  controlled. 

Back  of  the  entry  of  American  capital,  however,  which 
has  been  comparatively  recent,  lie  a  series  of  financial 
complications  in  which  many  of  the  republics  have  been 
involved  with  European  creditors.  As  a  bulwark  against 
foreign  aggression  of  the  sort  that  was  contemplated  in 
1823,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  of  course,  has  been  effective. 
No  overt  attempts  have  been  made,  or  seem  likely  to  be 
made  by  any  non-American  nation  at  actual  colonization 
or  the  setting  up  of  a  foreign  political  system  or  the  oppres- 
sion of  any  of  the  republics.  More  insidious  forms  of  alien 
influence  have  appeared  to  menace  the  welfare  of  the  lands 
to  the  southward  and  challenge  the  future  efficacy  of  the 
great  American  tenet  in  its  broader  implications. 

Viewing  the  history  of  the  smaller  Caribbean  republics 
as  a  whole  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  it  is  evident 
that,  with  the  exception  of  Cuba,  few  have  displayed 
financial  soundness.  Even  hi  the  case  of  the  European 
colonies  the  balance  sheet  has  been  far  from  favorable. 
Most  of  the  smaller  republics,  certainly,  like  tropical  areas 
elsewhere,  have  gravitated  toward  bankruptcy,  as  one  or 
another  has  repudiated  or  scaled  down  its  foreign  debt, 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  189 

found  itself  unable  to  pay,  or  has  fallen  into  dispute  with 
foreign  creditors.  Whether  the  fault  lay  primarily  in  the 
misbehavior  or  incapacity  of  the  rulers  of  any  particular 
country,  or  was  attributable  rather  to  the  rapacity  of 
European  financiers  who  took  advantage  of  helplessness 
or  corruption,  is  beside  the  point.  The  condition  called  for 
alleviative  action  by  a  strong  neighbor,  if  security  and 
development  were  to  be  attained. 

On  the  other  hand,  apart  altogether  from  phenomena 
suggestive  of  force  and  fraud,  and  taking  legitimate  trans- 
actions alone  into  account,  it  is  manifest  that,  in  proportion 
as  weak  little  tropical  countries  need  outside  capital  for 
the  utilization  of  resources  that  consist  of  a  single  or  of  a 
very  small  number  of  staple  products,  their  dependence 
upon  this  financial  aid  is  likely  to  make  them  in  greater  or 
less  degree  subject  to  the  political  influence  of  the  home 
government  of  the  investor.  Similarly,  to  the  extent  that 
this  particular  home  government  supports  its  nationals  and 
promotes  their  enterprises  accordingly,  so  does  the  process 
of  economic  imperialism  continue  until  the  tropical  lands 
in  question  become  hopelessly  subordinate  to  an  alien 
political  control.  Such  a  control  would  be  revealed  in  three 
main  respects,  namely:  over  the  public  debt,  over  conces- 
sions granted  to  foreigners  for  the  exploitation  of  natural 
resources,  and  over  forms  of  purely  private  investment. 
The  issue  that  fairly  presents  itself,  therefore,  is,  whether 
the  inevitable  Control  that  proceeds  from  a  necessity  of 
adjusting  pecuniary  claims  of  one  sort  or  another  should 
be  exercised  by  a  European  nation  or  by  the  United  States. 

Unrelated  as  official  courses  of  action  to  meet  all  these 
conditions  and  circumstances  may  seem,  they  have  followed 
quite  consistently  nevertheless  certain  lines  of  development 
coincident  with  the  economic  tendencies  of  the  Caribbean 
area  and  marked  out  by  former  American  Secretaries  of 
State.  One  is  found  in  the  declaration  of  Richard  Olney 
in  1895:  "the  United  States  is  practically  sovereign  on  this 
continent,  and  its  fiat  is  law  upon  the  subjects  to  which  it 
confines  its  interposition."2  Another  is  visible  in  state- 

1  House  Documents,  54th  Cong.,  1st  sess.,  I,  No.  1,  pt.  1,  p.  558. 


190  WILLIAM  B.    SHEPHERD 

ments  of  Elihu  Root  in  1904:  "the  Monroe  Doctrine  .... 
is  an  assertion  of  our  right  for  our  own  interest  to  interfere 
with  the  action  of  every  other  nation  in  those  parts  of  this 
hemisphere  where  others  are  sovereign  ....  and  to 
say,  if  you  do  thus  and  so,  even  by  the  consent  of  the  sover- 
eign, we  shall  regard  it  as  an  unfriendly  act  because  it  will 
affect  us  injuriously;"3  "we  arrogate  to  ourselves  .... 
only  the  right  to  protect;  what  we  will  not  permit  the  great 
Powers  of  Europe  to  do  ....  we  will  not  permit 
any  American  republic  to  make  it  necessary  for  the  great 
Powers  of  Europe  to  do."4  A  third  is  to  be  noted  in  an 
assertion  of  Philander  C.  Knox  in  1912,  when,  referring  also 
to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  he  said:  "it  has  in  Providence 
been  given  to  us  of  the  North  to  state  and  interpret  it."6 
"Territorial  propinquity,"  moreover,  according  to  Robert 
Lansing  in  1917,  "creates  special  relations  between  coun- 
tries."6 Though  pronounced  in  the  famous  Lansing-Ishii 
agreement,  and  hence  in  quite  a  separate  connection,  the 
implications  of  this  assertion,  as  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Caribbean  region,  are  obvious  enough. 

When  one  reviews  such  highly  significant  utterances  by 
our  former  Secretaries  of  State,  the  most  striking  thing  about 
them  is  the  fact  that  they  were  delivered  by  representatives 
of  both  of  the  great  political  parties.  This  in  itself  denotes 
a  continuity  of  thought  under  successive  administrations 
and  regardless  of  differences  hi  political  platforms.  In  sub- 
stance the  several  dicta  appear  to  mean  that  the  exercise 
of  independent  action  by  American  republics  is  subject  to 
limitations  imposed  by  the  United  States  for  its  own  pro- 
tection and  in  the  interest  of  an  enforcement  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  by  obviating  in  advance  any  reason  for  its  appli- 
cation. As  a  political  medicine,  accordingly,  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  becomes  a  preventive  instead  of  a  remedy.  They 
would  indicate,  also,  that  the  proximity  of  a  powerful  and 
progressive  country  to  a  feeble  or  backward  one  entitles 

1  Senate  Document  No.  471,  63rd  Cong.,  2d  sess.,  p.  39. 
4  Elihu  Root,  Miscellaneous  addresses,  p.  272. 
*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  vol.  vi,  p.  495. 
5T.  F.  Millard,  Democracy  and  the  Eastern  Question,  p.  152. 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED    STATES  191 

the  former  to  a  right  of  determining  the  kind  of  relationship 
that  shall  exist  between  them. 

Whatever  the  inferences  that  may  be  drawn  from  these 
dicta,  they  are  centered  in  economic  and  political  concerns 
so  closely  interwoven  as  to  constitute,  when  applied  to  the 
Caribbean  region,  something  quite  akin  to  a  declaration  of 
economic  imperialism.  If  the  original  foundation  upon 
which  the  structure  rests  are  the  Venezuelan  imbroglio  and 
the  Cuban  insurrection,  the  keystone  to  the  arch  is  the 
Panama  Canal.  At  this  interoceanic  waterway  practically 
all  of  our  interests  roundabout  it  since  1903  have  converged, 
with  the  object  of  defending  it  and  of  guarding  against  the 
acquisition  by  oversea  nations  of  adjacent  trade  routes  that 
might  compete  with  it.  The  control  of  the  Canal  has  carried 
with  it  dominance  over  the  Caribbean  area,  and  that  for 
strategic,  political  and  economic  motives  identified  with 
the  protection  of  our  own  national  welfare. 

Regardless,  then,  of  their  particular  status  of  dependence 
or  independence,  the  countries  lying  in  and  around  that 
area  are  of  vital  interest  to  the  United  States.  Not  only 
are  they  immediate  neighbors  in  whose  well-being  we  must 
have  the  concern  that  proximity  suggests,  but  their  location 
possesses  for  us  a  political  and  economic,  as  well  as  purely 
human,  significance  that  we  cannot  fail  to  heed.  They 
are  situated  so  close  to  our  shores  and  to  the  Panama  Canal 
that  their  fortunes  and  ours  are  and  must  be  indissolubly 
linked.  Whether  this  fact  has  become  an  actual  part  of 
our  national  consciousness  or  not,  it  is  revealed  in  utterances 
and  in  deeds,  official  and  private,  sufficiently  to  make  its 
existence  plain.  More  than  that,  the  trend  of  international 
events  here  in  the  New  World,  no  less  than  in  the  Old,  as 
the  economic  and  political  consequences  of  the  war  became 
apparent,  would  seem  to  foretell  the  likelihood  of  an  extension 
of  the  influence  of  the  United  States  on  an  ever-widening 
scale  over  the  countries  in  and  around  the  Caribbean. 

In  this  connection  one  need  cite  but  a  single  concrete 
illustration — the  oil  problem.  Our  consumption  of  this 
product,  so  indispensable  in  an  oil-driven  age,  is  increasing 
and  the  home  supply  of  it  diminishing.  This,  however, 


192  WILLIAM  R.   SHEPHERD 

is  not  the  really  serious  or  alarming  phase  of  the  matter. 
Rather  is  it  to  be  found  hi  the  disposition  of  European 
governments  to  bar  foreigners  out  of  the  ownership  and 
operation  of  oil  properties,  and  themselves  actually  to 
participate  hi  the  ownership  and  control  of  the  corporations 
that  may  be  concerned — and  this  not  hi  their  own  dominions 
alone,  but  hi  countries  where  they  have  no  sovereignty. 
The  possible  effects  of  such  a  plan  of  action  upon  the  United 
States  are  easily  conceived.  Means  of  counteraction  will 
have  to  be  sought  hi  the  Caribbean  region  as  well  as  hi 
Mexico.  The  acquisition  by  European  countries  of  African 
and  Asiatic  territories  to  be  held  under  the  form  of  mandates 
from  a  League  of  Nations,  and  having  a  door  ostensibly 
open  while  the  economic  manage  within  apparently  is  kept 
closed,  has  thus  a  meaning  to  us  on  this  side  of  the  water. 

Whatever  the  characteristics  of  thought  and  deed,  there 
has  been  nothing  deliberate  and  systematic  about  our  course 
of  action  hi  the  Caribbean.  Neither  the  government  nor 
the  people  of  the  United  States  has  planned  it  hi  conscious 
fashion.  Worse  than  that,  utter  indifference  joined  with 
ignorance  has  marked  only  too  often  the  popular  attitude 
toward  it.  Things  said  or  done  have  aroused  substantially 
no  public  attention,  met  with  no  organized  aid  or  opposition 
hi  Congress  and  seldom  produced  either  approval  or  con- 
demnation hi  the  press.  Not  only  is  there  a  lack  of  interest 
in  what  we  have  done  or  are  doing  in  the  Caribbean,  but 
hi  why  anything  has  been  done.  The  American  people  has 
never  expressed  an  opinion  at  the  polls  as  to  whether  it 
sanctioned  or  not  a  variety  of  our  performances  there. 
Even  the  purchase  of  insular  territory  at  an  enormous 
price  evoked  no  especial  comment  one  way  or  the  other. 
Supposedly  independent  republics  have  had  their  independ- 
ence diminished  or  destroyed,  their  affairs  taken  over  and 
then*  inhabitants  and  property  made  subject  to  officials 
acting  under  the  orders  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States — all  without  the  slightest  constitutional  warrant — 
and  yet  who  among  us  seems  noticeably  to  care? 

To  our  neighbors  in  the  Caribbean,  moreover,  what  may 
be  termed  the  fourfold  relationship  of  this  country  to  its 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  193 

sister  republics  in  America  appears  to  have  been  applied 
with  particular  intenseness,  and  in  each  of  its  phases:  of 
territorial  expansion,  political  and  economic  dominance, 
invocations  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  pronouncements 
about  Pan-Americanism.  The  notion,  indeed,  of  an  essen- 
tial community  of  interests  and  problems  between  the 
United  States  and  its  fellow  republics,  which  suggests 
cooperation  for  the  promotion  of  the  one  and  the  solution 
of  the  other,  has  been  iterated  on  many  an  occasion,  even 
if  the  action  taken  by  this  country  has  been  rather  unilateral 
than  otherwise.  So,  too,  in  its  protean  guises  the  Monroe 
Doctrine — if  its  initial  letters  and  its  mode  of  application 
at  tunes  suggest  anything — would  seem  to  have  been  evolved 
under  successive  presidential  administrations  from  a  Demo- 
cratic-Republican "Manifest  Destiny"  into  a  Republican 
"Masterful  Domination,"  continuing  on  into  a  Republican 
"Money  Diplomacy"  and  thence,  according  to  the  opinion 
of  some  perhaps,  into  a  Democratic  "Much  Deception" — 
if  the  disparity  between  benevolent  assurances  about  the 
equality  of  nations  great  and  small  and  the  actual  manner 
hi  which  they  have  been  handled  since  1913  is  taken  into 
account.  But  when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  American 
public  seems  to  have  recked  nought  of  cause  or  consequence. 

There  has  been  some  expostulation,  to  be  sure,  over  a 
supposedly  deliberate  imperialism  of  ours  which  would  seek 
to  create  a  tropical  empire  to  the  southward,  as  a  sort  of 
belt  of  heat  about  the  temperate  waist-line  of  the  United 
States.  Condemnation,  also,  has  been  levelled  at  the  treat- 
ment by  this  country  of  a  number  of  the  smaller  republics, 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  so  treated  because  they  were 
weak  nations  and  as  such  might  be  imposed  upon.  To 
these  charges,  however,  an  answer  is  not  difficult. 

It  has  not  been  a  deliberate  spirit  of  imperialism,  nor 
even  a  solicitous  regard  for  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  but  rather 
a  more  or  less  unconscious  determination  on  the  part  of 
the  United  States  to  maintain  its  political  preponderance, 
promote  its  economic  advancement,  and  strengthen  through- 
out the  area  of  the  Caribbean  a  sense  of  inter-American 
solidarity  of  which  the  United  States  should  be  the  sponsor 


194  WILLIAM  R.   SHEPHERD 

and  guarantor,  that  has  led  this  country  to  introduce  among 
presumably  independent  republics  a  kind  of  tutelage  un- 
known elsewhere  in  the  world.  By  so  doing  it  has  sought 
no  exclusive  commercial  privileges.  Oversea  nations  share 
with  it  freely  the  benefits  of  the  stability  that  it  has  striven 
to  maintain.  Then*  citizens,  capital,  trade  and  property 
in  general  are  quite  as  amply  protected  as  our  own.  Yet 
it  cannot  be  denied  that,  in  regard  to  several  of  the  republics 
immediately  to  the  southward,  and  carefully  as  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  political  protectorate  has  been  avoided,  this 
country  has  converted  itself  into  a  trustee;  it  has  become 
a  self-appointed  mandatary  for  weaker  neighbors.  Even 
so  it  would  be  hard  to  prove  that  the  line  of  action  we  have 
taken  was  based  solely  upon  the  superiority  of  our  strength 
over  their  feebleness.  The  real  distinction,  on  the  contrary, 
that  we  have  endeavored  to  draw  rests  upon  the  difference 
between  orderly  and  progressive  self-government  and  retro- 
gressive disorder.  In  the  latter  case  government  by  the 
consent  of  the  governed  may  signify  merely  taking  a  gun 
and  going  into  politics;  but  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  at  all 
events  it  would  express  something  other  than  consent! 

One  may  admit,  nevertheless,  the  possibility  that  the 
substantial  difference  as  an  international  problem  between 
the  plight  of  Mexico  and  that  of  some  of  the  little  nations 
of  the  Caribbean  has  been  one  of  size.  Were  Mexico  a 
small  state  requiring  for  the  restoration  of  "law  and  order" 
merely  the  despatch  of  a  squad  of  American  sailors  and 
marines,  with  or  without  the  formulation  in  advance  of  a 
treaty  for  the  purpose  of  setting  up  a  virtual  protectorate, 
and  minus  also  the  antecedent  approval  or  even  knowledge 
of  the  American  people,  the  woes  of  Mexico  might  have 
been  assuaged  long  since.  Many  Americans  and  other 
foreigners  have  been  slain  and  much  American  and  other 
foreign  property  has  been  destroyed  or  damaged  in  that 
country.  This  has  not  been  true  in  the  Caribbean  states. 
"Cleaning  up"  Mexico,  doubtless,  would  be  a  big  job; 
whereas  "wiping  out"  the  independence  of  little  Caribbean 
republics  seems  to  have  been  part  of  the  day's  work! 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  195 

In  view  of  all  the  foregoing  and  in  view  also  of  the  fact 
that  we  have  completed  a  quarter  century  of  practices  more 
or  less  at  variance  with  platitudes,  though  not  with  official 
dicta,  and  have  emerged  furthermore  from  a  war  that  in 
directing  our  energies  abroad  has  obscured  more  than  ever 
our  thought  and  conduct  nearer  home,  it  is  about  time  for 
us  to  cease  drifting  in  the  Caribbean.  The  course  of  the 
United  States  toward  the  republics  and  European  colonies 
in  and  around  the  American  Mediterranean  ought  to  be 
shaped  by  a  definite  policy.  Just  what  we  intend  to  do  in 
that  region  should  be  rendered  clear.  Even  if  such  cate- 
gorical questions  as,  how  long  will  our  actual  power  and 
our  potentialities  for  interference  remain  as  they  are,  how 
often  shall  we  go  back  to  a  political  archbishop  at  Washing- 
ton for  more  tune — as  the  earlier  evolutionists  did  with  the 
Ussherian  chronology — or  whether  we  shall  ever  let  go,  can 
hardly  be  answered  in  a  manner  that  will  carry  practical 
conviction,  we  can  differentiate  at  least  among  what  we 
imagine  we  are  doing,  what  we  are  really  doing  and  what 
we  intend  to  do.  The  people  of  the  United  States  ought 
to  face  realities  and  leave  off  swallowing  honeyed  phrases 
that  have  a  different  taste,  perhaps,  in  the  Caribbean.  A 
precise  declaration  of  intention  is  needed — an  expression  of 
deliberate  national  will  working  on  the  basis  of  a  knowledge 
of  the  facts  and  an  appreciation  of  the  possible  consequences. 
Rather  than  allow  the  United  States  to  continue  resembling 
a  glacier  that  in  terrifying  silence  is  slipping  slowly  and 
surely  southward,  with  scant  prospect  of  melting  as  it  goes, 
the  simile  of  an  avalanche  might  be  preferable.  At  least 
it  would  have  the  advantage  of  enabling  our  Caribbean 
neighbors  to  see  and  hear  it  coming! 

In  the  formulation  of  a  definite  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  four  courses  of  action  are  available  for  con- 
sideration. Briefly  they  may  be  designated  as  "regulation," 
"annexation,"  "neutralization"  and  "abstention."  In  a 
geographical  sense,  "regulation"  would  be  applicable  to 
the  smaller  republics;  "annexation,"  to  the  British,  French 
and  Dutch  colonies;  "neutralization,"  to  the  republics  and 
possibly  to  the  colonies  also,  and  "abstention,"  to  both  of 
them. 


196  WILLIAM  R.   SHEPHERD 

Taking  up  the  first  of  these  suggested  modes  of  procedure, 
"regulation"  would  mean  that  the  United  States,  without 
depriving  of  its  actual  independence  any  nation  that  is 
unable  to  maintain  an  orderly  and  progressive  existence, 
should  exercise  over  it  such  a  degree  of  supervision  and 
control  as  may  be  requisite  to  enable  the  country  concerned 
to  govern  itself  properly.  If  we  adopt  and  proclaim  this 
to  be  our  Caribbean  policy,  however,  the  motives,  methods 
and  consequences  which  it  would  involve  must  be  clearly 
understood.  It  would  not  be  sufficient  simply  to  hit  upon 
a  form  of  administration  for  a  given  locality,  with  or  without 
training  in  the  art  of  self-government,  or  to  employ  the 
customary  means  for  an  assurance  of  order  or  an  attainment 
of  relief  from  the  burden  of  indebtedness.  The  question 
would  be:  whether  the  purpose  of  the  United  States  and  the 
action  chosen  to  correspond  would  be  altruistic  in  nature — 
one  genuinely  and  sincerely  designed  to  help  small  nations 
to  help  themselves;  or  whether  it  would  be  fixed  in  the  terms 
merely  of  our  own  material  interests  and  possibly  theirs. 
Along  with  the  assumption  by  this  country  of  a  right  to 
determine  for  itself  whether  a  particular  republic  is  fitted 
for  self-government  or  not,  it  would  be  equally  a  duty  to 
make  indisputably  plain  the  circumstances  that  would 
justify  interference  in  the  internal  or  external  affairs  of  that 
republic.  No  claim  based  on  proximity  or  necessity  alone, 
which  might  involve,  as  it  did  in  a  certain  famous  example 
hi  western  Europe  at  the  outbreak  of  the  recent  war,  the 
perpetration  of  a  moral  wrong,  would  suffice.  The  essential 
rights  of  small  nations  on  this  side  of  the  water  are  no  less 
an  obligation  to  uphold  than  they  are  on  the  other  side. 

What,  then,  are  the  bases  upon  which  such  regulation 
might  rest?  In  the  first  place  it  is  obvious  that  a  nation 
has  the  duty  no  less  than  the  right  to  protect  its  citizens 
and  then*  interests  abroad,  so  long  as  the  conduct  of  such 
citizens  is  in  accordance  with  the  privileges  guaranteed  them 
by  treaty  and  the  general  principles  of  international  law. 
Since  the  United  States,  moreover,  has  undertaken  in  its 
interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  prevent  non- 
American  nations  from  interfering  beyond  a  certain  point 


CAEIBBEAN   POLICY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  197 

in  the  affairs  of  an  American  republic  for  the  protection  of 
their  nationals,  it  is  plainly  the  duty  of  the  United  States 
also  to  extend  such  protection  beyond  the  point  which  the 
non- American  nations  in  question  may  not  pass.  While 
in  this  manner  it  is  bound  to  safeguard  legitimate  foreign 
interests,  it  is  none  the  less  obligated,  on  its  own  behalf  and 
on  that  of  any  particular  republic,  not  only  to  forestall 
foreign  intervention  but  to  balk  foreign  intrigue. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  amply  recognized  at  common 
law  that  anyone  has  the  right  to  abate  a  nuisance.  If 
conditions  reach  such  a  pass  in  any  given  republic  that  the 
lives  and  property  of  foreigners  and  nationals  are  wholly 
or  even  largely  at  the  mercy  of  armed  bands  engaged  in 
chronic  revolutionary  turmoil,  or  in  fomenting  in  one  state 
an  insurrection  planned  for  another  state,  and  the  conduct 
of  public  affairs  in  that  country  becomes  an  international 
scandal,  the  United  States  would  have  to  restore  order. 
How  legitimate  the  performance  of  this  police  duty  might 
be  must  depend  upon  the  extent  to  which  foreigners,  rather 
than  natives,  were  really  to  blame  for  the  conditions  war- 
ranting such  action. 

Financial  rehabilitation  is  another  basis  on  which  a  policy 
of  "regulation"  should  rest.  To  countries  like  many  of 
those  in  the  Caribbean  loans  have  been  and  still  are  in- 
dispensable. If  such  loans  are  to  have  the  proper  security, 
they  must  be  backed  by  liens  upon  the  public  revenues, 
foremost  among  which  are  the  customs  receipts.  By  then- 
honest  and  economical  administration  in  the  interests  of 
the  republic  concerned,  no  less  than  in  those  of  the  foreign 
creditors,  the  proceeds  from  taxation  in  one  form  or  another 
would  be  put  beyond  the  reach  of  more  or  less  professional 
trouble-makers,  whose  chief  aim  might  be  to  seize  the 
public  treasury.  The  chances  are,  also,  that  a  goodly 
number  of  the  evils  associated  with  the  grant  of  lavish 
concessions  to  foreigners  as  an  easy  way  of  borrowing  money 
would  be  obviated.  The  old  situation  whereby,  if  a  foreign 
corporation  in  receipt  of  such  a  concession  paid  the  rental 
regularly,  the  government  was  not  likely  to  intervene  on 
behalf  of  its  nationals  who  might  suffer  from  a  misuse  of 


198  WILLIAM  R.    SHEPHERD 

the  privilege  in  question,  would  not  so  readily  occur.  It 
may  well  happen,  nevertheless,  that  the  development  of 
natural  resources  in  some  instances  could  be  rendered 
profitable  only  through  the  grant  of  concessions  to  corpo- 
rations which  thereby  are  enabled  to  control,  not  land  and 
modes  of  transportation  alone,  but  native  labor  as  well. 
If  so,  the  duty  of  honest  supervision  to  guard  against 
exorbitant  demands  becomes  all  the  more  imperative. 
American  companies,  therefore,  doing  business  in  Caribbean 
countries  where  the  local  government  is  unable  or  unwilling 
to  keep  them  within  proper  legal  restraints,  should  be  in- 
corporated under  the  federal  laws  of  the  United  States  and 
be  made  subject  to  regulation  and  inspection. 

This  brings  up  the  question  as  to  the  ethics  of  certain 
pecuniary  claims  that  have  been  put  forward  by  foreign 
creditors  of  Caribbean  lands.  Fifteen  years  ago,  when  the 
news  was  flashed  across  the  seas  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  was  about  to  undertake  the  work  of  rehabili- 
tating the  finances  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  the  effect 
upon  European  banking  circles  was  paradoxical.  The  quo- 
tations of  bonds  issued  by  such  countries  rose  forthwith, 
but  some  of  the  bondholders  protested  against  any  arrange- 
ment of  the  sort  contemplated  for  ascertaining  the  actual 
validity  of  the  debts  alleged  to  have  been  incurred.  It 
was  apparent  then  that  the  United  States  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  European  practice,  sanctioned  by  long  usage,  of 
demanding  the  payment  of  claims  at  the  cannon's  mouth, 
prior  to  a  legal  determination  of  the  justice  of  the  amount 
to  be  exacted.  Whatever  the  opinion  entertained  overseas 
on  the  matter,  this  country  showed  itself  unwilling  to 
subscribe  to  the  view  that  any  nation  should  be  at  liberty 
to  decide  at  its  pleasure  how  it  might  collect  from  small 
states  sums  declared  to  be  due  its  nationals. 

If  proper  care  hi  the  supervision  of  matters  financial  is 
exercised,  the  results  are  likely  to  prove  beneficial  both  to 
the  foreign  investor  and  to  the  republic  concerned.  As  the 
one  is  relieved  of  anxiety  about  his  money,  so  the  other  is 
protected  against  oppressive  exploitation  and  the  ill  effects 
of  its  own  improvidence.  An  assurance  of  stability  in  these 


CAKIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  199 

respects  would  meet  pecuniary  obligations,  replace  a  fluc- 
tuating and  more  or  less  irredeemable  paper  money  by  a 
gold-secured  currency,  and  attract  the  capital  needful  to 
stimulate  industry,  promote  commerce,  and  foster  the  im- 
provement of  seaports  and  modes  of  transportation.  In 
general,  it  would  provide  the  republic  in  question  with  the 
measure  of  prosperity  which  the  abundance  of  its  natural 
resources  might  suggest.  Above  all,  the  United  States 
would  be  enabled  to  take  due  precautions  against  possible 
infringements  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  under  the  guise  of 
safeguarding  innocent  foreign  loans  and  concessions. 

So  as  not  to  wound  unnecessarily,  and  still  less  to  destroy, 
the  consciousness  of  nationhood,  financial  supervision  should 
be  entrusted  to  international  commissions  and  not  to  Ameri- 
cans alone.  The  creation  of  boards  composed  of  representa- 
tives both  of  the  republic  concerned  and  of  our  own  country 
would  not  imply  any  disparagement  of  dignity  on  either 
side.  If  railways  and  other  public  works  can  be  built  on 
this  joint  basis,  and  if  nations  interested  have  assigned  to 
commissions  of  the  sort  industrial  and  commercial  tasks  of 
great  difficulty  which  they  have  performed  with  entire 
success,  there  is  no  valid  reason  why  the  same  course  of 
action  could  not  be  adopted  in  reference  to  matters  of 
finance  as  between  the  United  States  and  Caribbean  coun- 
tries whose  pecuniary  problems  seem  incapable  of  solution 
by  local  effort  alone. 

Another  basis'  for  the  policy  of  "regulation"  would  take 
the  form  of  an  imposition  of  moral  restraint  upon  a  govern- 
ment whose  conduct  might  seem  hurtful  to  the  welfare  of 
its  citizens  or  that  of  an  assurance  of  moral  support  to 
attempts  at  social  amelioration.  On  behalf  of  international 
fair-dealing,  however,  the  course  of  action  ought  never  to 
be  inconsistent  or  gratuitously  meddlesome.  Such  a  spec- 
tacle as  that  of  the  United  States  refusing  to  uphold  the 
authority  of  the  Central  American  Court  of  Justice  for  the 
creation  of  which  it  was  really  the  sponsor,  and  allowing  it 
to  lapse  after  a  decision  indirectly  adverse  to  our  procedure 
with  regard  to  the  financial  rehabilitation  of  Nicaragua  had 
been  rendered,  ought  never  to  be  repeated.  Neither  should 


200  WILLIAM  B.   SHEPHERD 

the  performance  of  refusing  to  recognize  a  president  who 
might  have  secured  his  power  through  a  resort  to  violence. 
While  it  is  all  very  well  for  the  United  States  to  try  to 
inculcate  a  love  for  democracy  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  type,  by 
helping  Caribbean  republics  to  govern  themselves,  insuring 
to  them  the  largest  measure  of  democratic  government  of 
which  they  may  be  capable,  and  exercising  on  its  own  ac- 
count such  an  amount  of  control  over  the  fundamentals  as 
may  seem  reasonable  and  prudent,  insistence  upon  a  right 
of  withholding  recognition  because  of  a  difference  in  methods 
of  presidential  selection  is  wholly  unjustifiable.  Unless  we 
are  prepared  to  accept  the  implication  that  this  procedure 
entails,  namely,  that  we  ourselves  guarantee  the  fairness 
of  elections  by  superintending  them,  it  is  a  most  insidious 
form  of  intervention  in  the  domestic  affairs  of  a  friendly 
neighbor.  The  same  may  be  said  of  our  practice  in  several 
cases  of  sustaining  a  particular  government  in  power  which 
is  not  desired  by  a  majority  of  the  citizens. 

Were  the  policy  of  "regulation,"  furthermore,  to  be  not 
only  adopted  but  rendered  systematic,  it  would  suggest  the 
advisability  of  ascertaining  whether  the  existing  forms  and 
processes  of  administration  employed  in  the  Caribbean  are 
well  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  localities  affected,  and 
whether  some  degree  of  uniformity,  instead  of  the  actual 
heterogeneity,  might  not  be  introduced  both  into  that  area 
and  into  the  various  bureaus  and  divisions  at  Washington 
which  are  charged  with  the  conduct  of  their  affairs.  It 
would  determine  whether  the  course  of  action  thus  far 
pursued  and  the  theories  underlying  it  really  befit  the  needs 
of  the  regions  and  peoples  to  which  they  are  applied,  and 
the  extent  to  which  a  careful  discrimination  might  provide 
for  subserving  better  their  respective  interests  where  con- 
ditions might  present  marked  differences  for  consideration. 
However  satisfactory  a  kind  of  administration  which  dis- 
tributes powers  between  central  and  local  authorities  under 
a  federal  system  may  seem  to  the  American  people,  it  is 
not  apt  to  work  under  circumstances  quite  unlike  those  to 
which  we  are  accustomed.  At  the  earliest  possible  moment, 
also,  military  control,  wherever  set  up,  should  be  superseded 


CARIBBEAN   POLICY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  201 

by  civil  rule.  More  important  still,  the  American  authori- 
ties temporarily  in  charge  should  provide  amply  for  the 
advancement  of  education  and  never  rest  content  merely 
with  a  promotion  of  material  well-being.  Industry,  com- 
merce and  transportation  must  be  stimulated,  of  course, 
but  the  training  of  the  mental  and  moral  senses  and  the 
elevation  of  the  standard  of  living  are  so  many  human  rights 
that  must  be  given  preference  over  all  other  considerations. 
Instead  of  having  the  duties  and  responsibilities  at  Wash- 
ington distributed  among  several  departments  of  govern- 
ment, moreover,  it  might  be  desirable  to  consolidate  them 
as  much  as  practicable  on  behalf  of  a  more  efficient  adminis- 
stration.  As  matters  stand,  the  failure  to  coordinate  the 
agencies  entrusted  with  the  direction  of  Caribbean  concerns 
is  likely  to  produce  confusion  where  it  does  not  work  in- 
justice. Consolidation,  also,  might  serve  more  effectively 
to  centre  public  attention  upon  this  particular  phase  of  our 
foreign  relationships,  lest  it  become  excessively  bureaucratic. 

Every  possible  safeguard,  therefore,  must  be  chosen 
against  arbitrary  action.  To  whatever  of  importance  is 
done  the  utmost  publicity  should  be  assured.  This  is  all 
the  more  imperative  in  view  of  the  indifference  of  our 
people  to  foreign  affairs.  The  United  States  is  not  like 
Great  Britain,  where  spokesmen  for  native  peoples  are 
numerous  in  Parliament  and  advocates  of  their  rights  are 
vocal  in  the  press  and  on  the  platform.  Here  in  our  country 
the  tendency  only  too  often  is  to  conclude  that  such  a 
spokesman  or  advocate  is  harboring  an  ulterior  motive  of 
self-interest  or  else  a  sinister  design  upon  the  common  wel- 
fare. Frank  and  honest  constructive  criticism,  neverthe- 
less, is  needed  in  the  management  of  our  foreign  concerns 
more  than  in  those  of  domestic  import,  just  because  so 
little  public  attention  is  devoted  to  them. 

Manifold  as  the  several  advantages  of  the  policy  under 
consideration  may  appear  to  be,  there  is  quite  another  side 
to  the  picture.  If  "regulation"  be  our  motto,  it  means 
something  other  than  mere  "dollar  diplomacy"  or  the  sub- 
stitution of  "dollars  for  bullets,"  in  the  same  fashion  that 
the  police  phase  of  our  course  of  action  would  be  intended 


202  WILLIAM  K.   SHEPHERD 

to  replace  bullets  by  ballots.  It  connotes  a  tightening  of 
the  grip  of  the  American  investor  whose  hand  would  be 
upheld  by  the  government  of  the  United  States.  If  this 
in  turn  should  imply  the  reduction  of  the  smaller  Caribbean 
republics  to  the  position  of  debtors,  in  order  to  facilitate 
the  exercise  of  political  power  over  them,  or  on  the  plea  of 
suppressing  revolution  give  to  Americans  a  monopolistic 
grasp  upon  the  resources  and  wealth  of  those  countries,  its 
ethical  merits  would  be  dubious  indeed. 

Moreover  there  are  certain  pleasant  terms  in  international 
parlance  the  use  of  which  an  honest  consistency  would  have 
to  make  us  forego.  "The  twenty-one  independent  republics 
of  the  New  World,"  the  "equality  of  sovereign  states  in 
this  hemisphere,"  the  "self-determination  of  small  nations," 
even  "Pan-Americanism"  and  similar  expressions,  would 
have  to  fall  somewhat  into  desuetude,  except  as  ornate 
trappings  for  state  occasions.  And  yet,  if  it  be  true  that 
several  of  the  Caribbean  countries  are  in  fact  no  longer 
independent  and  belong  almost,  if  not  quite,  in  the  category 
of  the  British  crown  colonies,  so  far  as  their  relationship 
to  the  United  States  is  concerned,  the  inconsistency  in 
employing  misnomers  would  seem  already  obvious. 

It  might  happen,  also,  that  the  concretion  of  a  heteregene- 
ous  series  of  activities  in  the  Caribbean  into  a  definite  and 
officially  announced  policy  of  regulating  their  affairs  would 
move  in  the  direction  of  forming  an  actual  Caribbean  empire 
by  a  constant  enlargement  of  the  nature  and  scope  of  what 
was  being  done.  If  so,  it  might  create  a  tendency  to  widen 
its  bounds  far  enough  to  include  Mexico.  True,  our  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  had  no  historical  bearing  at  the 
time  of  its  pronouncement  upon  the  republics  hi  the  Carib- 
bean, but  there  is  at  least  a  semblance  of  a  generality  of 
application  about  the  principles  it  sets  forth.  If  govern- 
ments do  owe  their  just  powers  to  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, as  much  in  the  great  sea  to  the  southward  as  they 
do  in  the  United  States  itself  and  hi  other  powerful  nations, 
it  is  rather  hard  to  reconcile  either  this  particular  tenet,  or 
its  later  exposition  in  regard  to  making  the  world  safe  for 
democracy,  with  a  regulation  of  the  affairs  of  sister  republics, 


CARIBBEAN    POLICY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES  203 

unless  the  mental  reservations  that  may  be  lurking  behind 
either  of  them  are  rendered  distinctly  geographical  and 
political  as  well. 

It  might  be  argued,  furthermore,  that  in  order  to  befit 
a  new  set  of  circumstances  the  adoption  of  such  a  policy 
would  require  still  another  fundamental  alteration  in  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  as  originally  conceived.  As  that  pro- 
nouncement was  designed  to  protect  both  the  republics  of 
America  at  large  and  the  United  States  itself  against  the 
wiles  and  perils  of  European  domination,  so  hereafter  it 
would  have  to  be  understood  to  mean  that  it  supplies  the 
United  States  with  an  official  dictum  for  the  establishment 
in  the  Caribbean  of  an  American  sphere  of  influence.  On 
the  principle  that  what  a  non- American  power  is  prohibited 
from  doing  we  may  do,  and  that  precisely  because  our 
country  is  not  a  non-American  power,  we  can  build  up  or 
tear  down  as  we  list — for  "we  have  the  ships,  we  have  the 
men  and  we 'have  the  money  too!"  The  Caribbean  re- 
publics, accordingly,  under  such  an  interpretation  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  must  be  kept  absolutely  independent  of 
Europe,  even  if  in  order  to  attain  that  desirable  situation 
we  have  to  make  them  dependent  upon  the  United  States. 

Of  the  policies  that  remain  to  be  dealt  with,  those  of 
"annexation"  and  "neutralization"  belong  to  the  realm  of 
the  conceivable  rather  than  of  the  actual,  and  hence  do 
not  call  for  elaboration  here.  "Annexation,"  it  may  be 
said,  would  suggest  the  acquisition  of  the  British,  French 
and  Dutch  colonies  by  purchase  from  then*  present  European 
owners.7  Whatever  the  advantages  or  disadvantages  of 
this  procedure,  its  adoption  would  be  quite  compatible 
with  the  policy  already  discussed.  Just  as  "regulation," 
if  duly  safeguarded  against  abuse,  would  assure  to  the 
republics  an  independence  as  effective  as  that  which  Cuba 
now  possesses,  so  "annexation,"  if  carried  out  in  the  spirit 
that  has  been  displayed  in  the  administration  of  Porto 
Rico  and  the  Philippines,  would  endow  the  colonies  with 

7W.  R.  Shepherd,  "The  attitude  of  the  United  States  toward  the  re- 
tention by  European  nations  of  colonies  in  and  around  the  Caribbean," 
in  Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Political  Science  (New  York,  1917),  pp. 
200-13. 


204  WILLIAM  R.   SHEPHERD 

a  measure  of  self-government  and  an  opportunity  for 
progress  more  liberal  by  far  than  what  they  now  have. 

"Neutralization,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  course  of  action 
from  which  the  ideas  of  "regulation"  and  "annexation" 
would  be  wholly  absent.  Moreover  it  would  necessitate 
a  relinquishment  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  the  geographical 
extent  that  might  be  required.  At  all  events  it  would  have 
as  its  objective  an  application  to  the  Caribbean  of  what  has 
been  done  to  states,  provinces  and  other  localities  in  Europe 
and  islands  adjacent  to  it.  The  republics,  and  if  Great 
Britain,  France  and  the  Netherlands  were  willing,  the 
colonies  also,  would  be  placed  under  an  international  guar- 
antee of  perpetual  immunity  from  external  attack,  and 
prevented  in  like  fashion  from  making  war.  To  this  end 
the  European  countries  that  hold  the  dependencies  in 
question,  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  the  greater  nations 
at  least  of  South  America,  as  the  parties  mainly  interested, 
might  be  invited  to  join  the  United  States  in  a  common 
pledge  of  protection  to  the  Caribbean  lands. 

Among  the  three  policies  thus  far  proposed,  that  of 
"regulation"  is  at  present  the  most  practicable  from  the 
American  national  standpoint.  It  squares  more  with  pre- 
cedents and  conditions,  also,  than  either  of  the  others. 
If  declared  definitely  to  be  the  policy  of  the  United  States, 
it  might  have  a  beneficial  influence  through  this  very 
declaration  upon  republics  of  unrest,  which  are  not  soothed 
by  bland  assurances  from  us  about  equality  among  sovereign 
nations,  so  long  as  acts  indicative  of  a  belief  to  the  contrary 
are  employed  against  them.  In  the  fullness  of  time,  more- 
over, acquisition  of  the  European  colonies  may  be  combined 
with  it. 

But,  if  the  smaller  republics  in  and  around  the  great 
sea  to  the  southward,  along  with  their  fellows  of  larger 
dimensions  elsewhere  in  America,  are,  as  on  repeated  oc- 
casions our  statesmen  and  publicists  have  declared  them 
to  be — free  and  independent  sovereign  nations,  on  an 
equality  of  rank  and  dignity  with  other  nations  of  the  world, 
and  hence  entitled  to  the  immunity  from  interference  by 
outsiders  which  that  status  would  require — and  if  the 


CARIBBEAN   POLICY   OF  THE   UNITED    STATES  205 

"Pan- Americanism"  that  we  profess  really  rests  upon  such 
a  foundation,  then  "abstention"  would  be  ideally  and 
sentimentally  the  policy  for  the  United  States  to  adopt. 
This  would  mean  a  discontinuance  of  the  practices  that 
have  marked  our  treatment  of  many  of  the  Caribbean 
countries,  a  withdrawal  of  so  much  of  the  political  control 
over  them  as  now  exists,  and  an  abandonment  of  any 
thought  of  acquiring  the  European  colonies  as  well  as  of 
securing  the  neutralization  of  either  the  republics  or  the 
colonies.  Logically,  also,  it  would  appear  to  connote  even 
a  renunciation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

Accordingly  the  little  states  in  question  would  have  to 
be  allowed  to  work  out  then*  own  destinies  as  they  might 
see  fit.  Any  limitation  placed  upon  them  in  the  exercise 
of  then*  right  to  freedom  in  the  broad  sense  would  wound, 
and  possibly  destroy,  their  consciousness  of  nationhood. 
The  sole  remedy  in  justice  applicable  to  them,  in  case  their 
behavior  at  any  time  were  not  to  square  with  the  rules  of 
conduct  laid  down  by  civilized  nations,  would  be  to  subject 
them  to  an  international  boycott  until  they  had  mended 
then-  ways. 

For  two  reasons,  however,  a  policy  of  "abstention"  is 
untenable.  One  of  them  is  unhappily  the  incontrovertible 
logic  of  things  as  they  are.  The  other  is  the  fact  that  most 
of  the  republics  of  Latin  America,  including  several  of 
those  in  the  Caribbean  area,  have  joined  the  League  of 
Nations,  and  by  so  doing  have  formally  recognized  the 
validity  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  which,  in  accordance  with 
Article  21,  "nothing"  in  the  Covenant  "shall  be  deemed 
to  affect."  Whether  the  United  States  becomes  a  member 
of  the  League  or  not,  the  result  is  the  same.  The  cardinal 
tenet  that  governs  our  relations  with  the  republics  of  Latin 
America  has  become  through  their  express  recognition  of 
it,  and  through  that  of  the  other  signatories  of  the  Covenant, 
a  part  of  the  international  law  of  the  world.  Instead  of 
protecting  them  against  such  a  construction  as  the  United 
States  may  determine  to  put  upon  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
their  adoption  of  the  Covenant  appears  rather  to  have 
deprived  them  of  the  measure  of  protection  that  they 
already  enjoyed. 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  INTERVENTION  IN 
SANTO  DOMINGO  AND  HAITI 

By  Judge  Otto  Schoenrich,  formerly  President  of  the  Nicaragua 
Mixed  Claims  Commission;  Connected  with  the  Reorgani- 
zation of  Dominican  Finances;  Author  of 
"Santo  Domingo" 

As  part  of  the  heritage  left  us  by  the  Spanish  War  our 
country  is  charged  with  the  arduous  but  honorable  task 
of  assisting  the  countries  of  the  Caribbean  Sea  in  the  quest 
of  economic  and  political  well-being.  Porto  Rico  and  Cuba 
early  came  under  our  administrative  action  and  our  record 
in  both  of  those  Islands  has  brought  honor  to  the  United 
States.  In  the  last  five  years  new  fields  have  been  opened 
to  our  activity,  and  Hispaniola,  the  favorite  island  of 
Columbus,  has  resounded  with  the  tramp  of  the  American 
marines.  The  two  republics  on  that  island,  the  Dominican 
Republic  of  Santo  Domingo,  and  the  Republic  of  Haiti, 
had  stumbled  on  the  difficult  road  of  self-government  and 
we  have  intervened  to  raise  them  up  and  help  them  on  to 
material  prosperity  and  political  stability.  It  is  the  purpose 
of  this  address  to  set  forth,  in  brief  outline,  how  these  inter- 
ventions have  come  about  and  the  manner  in  which  we  are 
fulfilling  our  mission. 

SANTO  DOMINGO 
Occupation  by  the  United  States 

Between  the  Dominican  Republic  and  the  United  States 
close  relations  have  existed  since  1905.  At  that  time  the 
Dominican  custom-houses  were  placed  in  charge  of  an 
American  receiver-general  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a 
bond  issue  through  which  the  Dominican  Republic  redeemed 
itself  from  bankruptcy.  Under  a  treaty  between  the 
Dominican  Republic  and  the  United  States  both  govern- 

206 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO    AND   HAITI         207 

ments  agreed  to  protect  the  receiver-general,  and  the 
Dominican  government  promised  not  to  increase  its  debt 
without  the  consent  of  the  American  government. 

Events  progressed  satisfactorily  in  Santo  Domingo  until 
November,  1911,  when  the  assassination  of  President 
Caceres  inaugurated  a  period  of  civil  commotion,  during 
which  the  Dominican  government  violated  its  treaty  pledge 
to  refrain  from  further  debt  contraction.  As  revolution 
succeeded  revolution  the  American  navy  repeatedly  gave 
moral  support  to  one  side  or  the  other,  and  officials  came 
from  the  state  department  to  arrange  compromises.  In 
April,  1916,  the  minister  of  war  endeavored  to  depose  the 
president,  and  another  revolution  threatened,  when  the 
American  government  took  drastic  action.  With  the  con- 
sent of  the  Dominican  president  marines  were  landed  and 
took  possession  of  Santo  Domingo  and  other  port  towns. 
In  the  interior  there  was  some  opposition,  but  occupation 
of  the  whole  country  was  eventually  accomplished,  with  a 
loss  of  seven  Americans  killed  and  fifteen  wounded,  and 
probably  about  three  hundred  Dominicans  killed  and 
wounded.  The  American  forces  took  over  the  collection 
of  the  Dominican  revenues  and  disarmed  the  inhabitants, 
but  otherwise  the  affairs  of  the  Republic  were  administered 
in  the  usual  manner. 

The  Congress  of  Santo  Domingo  thereupon  elected  as 
temporary  president  Dr.  Francisco  Henriquez  y  Carvajal, 
a  distinguished  physician  and  highly  cultured  man,  who 
assembled  a  cabinet  of  the  most  prominent  Dominicans. 
The  United  States  government,  however,  refused  to  extend 
recognition  except  on  condition  that  a  new  treaty  between 
the  two  countries  be  adopted,  similar  to  the  treaty  recently 
negotiated  between  the  United  States  and  Haiti.  The 
principal  features  of  this  treaty  were  the  collection  of  the 
customs  under  American  auspices,  the  appointment  of  an 
American  financial  adviser,  and  the  establishment  of  a 
constabulary  force  officered  by  Americans. 

Henriquez  and  his  cabinet  refused  to  accede,  pointing 
out  that  the  proposed  arrangement  would  make  the  Domini- 
can government  a  puppet  controlled  by  all-powerful  and 


208  OTTO   SCHOENMCH 

not  sufficiently  responsible  American  officials.  The  Ameri- 
can authorities  exerted  pressure  by  declining  to  pay  over 
any  of  the  Republic's  revenues,  and  as  they  controlled 
practically  all,  the  Henriquez  government  was  left  penniless. 
As  a  result  no  salaries  were  paid,  most  government  services 
were  discontinued,  and  the  whole  machinery  of  government 
was  paralyzed.  The  entire  country  rallied  about  the 
president,  however.  Political  enmities  were  forgotten, 
officials  performed  their  duties  as  far  as  possible  without 
pay,  and  the  resistance  to  the  American  demands,  though 
passive,  was  general. 

Proclamation  of  military  government 

The  situation  continued  for  several  months  until  on 
November  29,  1916,  the  commander  of  the  American  cruiser 
force  in  Dominican  waters  broke  the  deadlock  by  declaring 
the  Dominican  Republic  under  the  temporary  military 
administration  of  the  United  States. 

Although  the  proposed  new  treaty  had  met  with  resistance, 
I  believe  the  majority  of  thinking  Dominicans  found  abun- 
dant consolation  in  the  turn  of  events.  They  remembered 
the  advances  in  Porto  Rico  and  Cuba  under  American 
supervision  and  hoped  that  in  a  few  months  the  road  would 
be  opened  to  similar  progress  in  Santo  Domingo. 

The  United  States  navy  and  marine  officers  took  over 
the  entire  government  of  the  country,  which  they  still 
retain.  A  rear-admiral  of  the  American  navy  is  military 
governor  and  exercises  full  executive  and  legislative  func- 
tions, the  Dominican  congress  being  suspended.  The  posts 
of  cabinet  ministers  are  filled  by  officers  of  the  American 
navy  and  marine  corps.  Although  this  form  of  government 
still  continues  in  Santo  Domingo,  yet  at  the  same  time  an 
American  minister  is  maintained  there,  under  the  theory 
that  the  country  is  independent;  naturally  his  duties  are 
nominal. 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI         209 

Accomplishments  of  military  government 

The  military  government  has  now  lasted  three  and  one- 
half  years.  In  that  time  it  has  accomplished  a  number  of 
results  of  benefit  to  the  country,  of  which  I  shall  mention 
the  more  important : 

1.  Public  works.     The  military  government  has  shown 
a  commendable  interest  in  road  building.    Many  miles 
of  roads  have  been  constructed  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.     This  in  itself  is  a  service  greatly  to  be  appreciated, 
for  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  in  the  world  worse 
mountain  roads  than  in  Santo  Domingo.     The  Dominicans, 
however,   complain  that  much  money  has  been  wasted. 
Some  work  has  been  done  also  on  bridges,  port  improve- 
ments and  minor  matters. 

2.  Finance.     In  financial  matters  the  military  govern- 
ment has  been  wise  enough  to  utilize  the  services  of  a 
competent  civilian  who  was  formerly  assistant  receiver- 
general.     Through  a  claims  commission  most  of  the  claims 
outstanding  against  the  Dominican  government  have  been 
settled,  and  the  awards  of  the  commission  have  been  paid 
by  means  of  a  bond  issue.    New  tax  and  revenue  laws  have 
been  enacted. 

8.  Police.  The  Dominican  army  and  police  force  were 
abolished  and  in  their  place  a  new  police  force,  called  the 
national  guard,  has  been  created.  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
whereas  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  nearly  all  the  officers  of 
the  newly  created  police  forces  were  natives  and  very  few 
Americans,  in  Santo  Domingo  the  rule  is  the  other  way, 
and  practically  all  the  officers  are  former  officers  or  privates 
of  the  marines. 

4.  Education.  The  marine  officer  in  charge  of  education 
is  a  very  intelligent  man  and  many  decrees  attest  his  interest 
in  the  matter.  A  set  of  new  school  laws  prepared  by  a 
board  of  prominent  Dominicans  has  brought  considerable 
improvement  over  former  conditions,  though  probably  the 
improvement  would  be  still  more  marked  had  trained  edu- 
cators been  on  the  board. 


210  OTTO  SCHOENRICH 

5.  General  improvements.  Further,  a  new  postal  organi- 
zation has  been  effected;  new  sanitary  regulations  issued; 
considerable  study  made  of  the  chaotic  land  title  situation, 
with  a  view  to  introducing  the  Torrens  system;  attention 
has  been  given  to  the  promotion  of  agriculture;  and  a 
number  of  other  measures  are  under  consideration. 

These  accomplishments  are  all  of  great  importance;  yet 
when  we  compare  them  with  the  far-reaching  reforms 
effected  in  Cuba  during  the  first  intervention,  which  also 
lasted  about  three  and  one-half  years,  or  in  Porto  Rico 
during  the  first  three  and  one-half  years  of  American  rule, 
or  even  during  the  shorter  second  intervention  in  Cuba, 
they  appear  meager.  The  improvements  have  not  been 
so  varied,  nor  so  thorough,  nor  so  excellent  as  those  in 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico. 

Moreover  the  work  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  is  all  the 
more  remarkable  because  of  the  small  amount  of  friction, 
the  measure  in  which  the  cooperation  of  the  people  was 
obtained,  and  the  fact  that  full  civil  liberties  were  enjoyed 
by  the  native  population.  In  Santo  Domingo,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  reforms  have  been  accompanied  by  the  complete 
suppression  of  popular  liberties  under  a  drastic  censorship 
and  the  oppressive  action ,  of  arbitrary  military  courts. 
And  this  brings  me  to  the  three  great  defects  which  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Dominicans  have  neutralized  the  good  works 
of  the  military  government,  namely,  first,  the  character 
of  the  military  government;  second,  the  provost  courts; 
and  third,  the  censorship. 

Character  of  the  military  government 

Military  officers  give  excellent  results  in  administrative 
positions  during  warfare  or  in  brief  emergencies,  but  as  a 
rule  they  do  not  prove  good  administrators  in  the  long  run. 
They  are  apt  to  be  autocratic,  arbitrary,  intolerant  and 
inefficient.  There  are,  of  course,  exceptions,  as  is  proved 
by  the  administration  of  General  Wood  in  Cuba,  but  the 
rule  is  as  stated.  Such  has  been  the  experience  in  Santo 
Domingo. 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI         211 

Among  the  naval  and  marine  officers  in  charge  in  Santo 
Domingo  a  number  have  been  conscientious  though  in- 
experienced administrators;  many  have  done  their  work 
without  sympathy;  and  not  a  few  have  been  overbearing 
tyrants.  As  a  chain  is  judged  by  its  weakest  link,  so  these 
have  made  most  impression  on  the  Dominicans.  Most  of 
the  officers  have  had  to  depend  on  interpreters,  generally 
imported  from  nearby  islands,  who  have  been  disposed  to 
adopt  an  aggravating  air  of  superiority. 

To  the  credit  of  the  military  government  it  must  be  said 
that  it  has  repeatedly  sought  the  assistance  of  competent 
civilians,  though  it  has  occasionally  made  errors  of  judg- 
ment in  their  selection.  It  has  made  the  bad  mistake  of 
giving  the  Dominicans  little  participation  in  their  govern- 
ment and  has  thus  set  itself  up  as  a  hateful  foreign  military 
autocracy.  A  few  months  ago,  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets, 
it  appointed  an  advisory  council  of  the  five  foremost  Domini- 
cans, but  as  it  ignored  the  council's  recommendations  and 
tried  to  force  the  council  to  endorse  an  objectionable  bond 
issue,  the  members  of  the  council  resigned  and  resentment 
was  greater  than  before. 

In  the  provinces  and  municipalities  the  local  American 
military  commanders  have  acted  like  little  kings,  to  the 
disgust  of  Dominicans  and  foreigners  alike.  As  often 
happens,  the  lower  the  grade  of  a  military  official,  the  more 
overbearing  his  conduct  is  apt  to  be.  There  are  many 
stories  current  of  tactless  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  local 
American  officials  and  of  the  arrogance  and  petty  tyranny 
of  American  and  Dominican  subordinates.  There  are  also 
unfortunate  stories  current  of  torture  of  prisoners  by  water 
cure,  by  application  of  red-hot  machetes  and  in  other  ways. 
A  protest  signed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Santo  Domingo 
which  is  being  circulated  throughout  Latin  America,  is,  in 
part,  my  authority  for  this  statement.  Giving  prisoners 
an  opportunity  to  escape  and  shooting  them  while  escaping 
is  also  said  to  have  occurred. 


212  OTTO   SCHOENRICH 

—       The  provost  courts 

Another  source  of  dissatisfaction  is  found  in  the  provost 
courts.  They  are  composed  of  one  or  more  American 
officers  and  were  originally  established  to  take  cognizance 
of  "offenses  against  the  military  government,"  but  this 
phrase  was  stretched  to  cover  almost  anything.  The 
provost  courts  have  gained  the  reputation  of  being  unjust, 
oppressive  and  cruel,  and  to  delight  in  excessive  sentences. 
These  provost  courts,  with  their  arbitrary  and  overbearing 
methods,  then*  refusal  to  permit  accused  persons  to  be 
defended  by  counsel,  and  their  foreign  judges,  foreign 
language  and  foreign  procedure,  are  galling  to  the  Domini- 
cans, who  regard  them  with  aversion  and  terror. 

The  censorship 

The  third  source  of  trouble  has  been  the  censorship. 
When  the  American  authorities  took  over  the  administration 
of  Santo  Domingo,  they  immediately  instituted  a  censorship 
more  rigid  than  any  the  country  had  seen  in  the  darkest 
days  of  dictatorship.  Nothing  was  too  high  for  the  censor: 
he  went  so  far  as  to  blue-pencil  an  official  address  of  the 
chief  justice  of  Santo  Domingo;  nor  was  anything  too  insig- 
nificant: not  even  an  advertisement  for  a  servant  girl  could 
be  published  without  his  approval.  Arbitrary  and  ridi- 
culous rulings  of  censors  elsewhere  had  their  counterpart 
in  Santo  Domingo.  The  use  by  newspapers  of  the  title 
"general,"  as  a  title  for  a  Dominican,  and  of  certain  words 
such  as  "national"  and  "revolution"  and  of  certain  phrases 
such  as  "freedom  of  thought,"  "freedom  of  speech,"  was 
strictly  forbidden.  Not  the  slightest  criticism  of  the  acts 
of  the  government  or  American  officials  was  tolerated. 
Censors  in  different  cities  had  different  criteria  of  severity, 
and  the  censor  in  Santo  Domingo  has  forbidden  the  repro- 
duction of  an  article  which  was  lawful  in  Macoris,  thirty 
miles  away.  Papers  and  books  from  the  United  States 
were  censored  as  freely  as  those  from  elsewhere.  A  book 
of  the  Porto  Rican  poet,  Jose  de  Diego,  speaker  of  the  house 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI         213 

of  delegates  of  Porto  Rico,  and  which  circulated  freely  in 
that  island,  was  forbidden  in  Santo  Domingo  and  its  dis- 
tributor sentenced  by  a  provost  court  to  five  years  at  hard 
labor,  which  penalty  was  generously  commuted  to  banish- 
ment from  the  Republic  and  confiscation  of  his  stock  of 
books.  In  September,  1919,  the  newspaper  El  Impartial  of 
Macoris  was  fined  $300  by  a  provost  court  for  reproducing 
an  inoffensive  cablegram  which  had  appeared  in  a  newspaper 
of  San  Juan,  Porto  Rico,  and  such  examples  might  be 
multiplied. 

Discontent  in  Santo  Domingo 

The  protest  against  the  censorship  at  length  filtered  back 
through  Washington  to  Santo  Domingo  and  since  January 
of  this  year  there  has  been  a  relaxation  of  the  rules.  Also 
the  military  government  is  showing  a  greater  consciousness 
of  its  responsibilities.  Meanwhile,  however,  a  spirit  of 
violent  opposition  and  resentment  against  everything  Ameri- 
can has  been  roused  among  the  inhabitants.  A  number 
of  men  have  taken  to  the  woods  to  resist  the  American 
administrators  by  force  of  arms.  They  are  called  "bandits" 
by  the  American  authorities,  but  they  evidently  have  the 
assistance  and  sympathy  of  the  country  people. 

It  was  formerly  the  boast  of  the  Dominicans  that  a 
stranger  could  safely  visit  any  part  of  the  country  unarmed. 
Now  this  condition  has  changed,  properties  are  menaced, 
and  it  is  dangerous  to  ride  across  the  country  without  an 
armed  guard. 

That  forcible  resistance  to  the  military  government  is 
not  more  widespread  is  due  solely  to  two  circumstances: 
the  fact  that  the  country  has  continued  to  enjoy  economic 
prosperity,  and  the  good  sense  of  the  Dominicans  who 
realize  that  armed  resistance  would  be  futile. 

Happily  the  military  government  seems  to  have  profited 
by  its  experiences,  and  its  tendencies  at  the  present  time 
are  more  reassuring,  but  the  record  so  far  cannot  be  viewed 
with  satisfaction. 


214  OTTO  SCHOENRICH 

HAITI 

Occupation  by  the  United  States 

Turning  now  to  Haiti  we  find  a  peculiar  and  very  confus- 
ing condition  of  affairs. 

Up  to  1915  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  Haiti 
were  as  formal  as  those  with  the  most  distant  countries. 
Of  late  years,  however,  there  had  been  a  rapid  political 
decay  in  Haiti,  the  country  had  not  respite  from  internal 
warfare,  and  the  danger  of  international  complications 
became  constantly  greater.  At  length,  in  July,  1915, 
President  Vilbrun  Guillaume  Sam  was  overthrown  and 
driven  to  take  refuge  in  the  French  legation  in  Port-au- 
Prince.  The  next  morning  the  city  was  aroused  at  learning 
that  during  the  night  the  garrison  of  the  jail,  under  orders 
of  the  district  commander,  had  massacred  over  200  political 
prisoners.  After  the  funeral  of  the  victims  several  of  the 
mourners  proceeded  to  the  Dominican  legation,  where  the 
district  commander  had  taken  refuge,  hauled  him  out  and 
killed  him.  The  others  invaded  the  French  legation, 
dragged  out  the  ex-president  and  handed  him  over  to  the 
mob,  by  which  he  was  promptly  killed  and  mutilated. 

Two  hours  after  this  occurrence,  July  28,  1915,  the  cruiser 
Washington  arrived  in  Port-au-Prince.  Marines  were  dis- 
embarked and  the  military  occupation  of  the  country  by 
the  United  States  forces  was  begun.  American  marines 
gradually  occupied  the  whole  country.  Against  the  vain 
protest  of  the  Haitian  government  they  took  over  the 
Haitian  custom-houses  and  many  public  services,  including 
most  municipal  services;  disarmed  the  Haitian  soldiers 
and  police;  and  seized  all  weapons  they  could  find.  Yet 
while  sorry  to  lose  their  independence  even  temporarily 
many  Haitians  were  not  grieved  at  the  American  occupation 
as  they  believed  it  meant  the  opening  of  a  new  era  for  their 
country. 

Although  the  American  military  officials  directed  as  much 
of  the  public  administration  as  they  chose,  the  Haitian 
governmental  organization  remained  intact  and  continued 
to  function  in  so  far  as  its  workings  did  not  conflict  with 
the  actions  of  the  Americans. 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI         215 

The  Haitian  treaty 

The  Haitian  congress  having  elected  a  new  president  of 
Haiti,  the  American  legation  presented  the  draft  of  a 
permanent  treaty  between  the  United  States  and  Haiti, 
making  Haiti  to  all  intents  an  American  protectorate.  The 
treaty  raised  a  storm  of  protest.  Under  the  strongest 
pressure  the  congress  eventually  adopted  it,  but  with 
twenty-three  "explanations,"  which  in  some  respects  varied 
the  sense  of  the  document  and  recall  the  "reservations" 
to  the  peace  treaty  recently  discussed  in  the  American 
senate.  The  American  state  department  correctly  decided 
that  the  "explanations"  were  merely  expressions  of  opinion 
and  did  not  amount  to  amendments.  The  Haitian  treaty 
was  accordingly  approved  by  the  American  senate  without 
modification,  and  ratifications  were  exchanged  May  3, 
1916.  Nothing  more  has  since  been  heard  of  the  Haitian 
"explanations." 

Under  this  treaty  the  American  government  promises 
to  aid  Haiti  in  the  development  of  her  resources  and  the 
reorganization  of  her  finances.  A  number  of  American 
experts  are  to  be  nominated  for  Haiti  by  the  president  of 
the  United  States :  a  general  receiver  of  customs  and  assist- 
ants, a  financial  adviser,  officers  to  organize  and  command 
a  Haitian  constabulary,  and  engineers  to  supervise  Haitian 
public  works  and  sanitation.  It  is  further  provided  that 
the  United  States  may  intervene  for  the  preservation  of 
Haitian  independence  and  the  maintenance  of  an  orderly 
government.  The  term  of  the  treaty  has  been  fixed  at 
twenty  years.  The  treaty  tends  to  set  up  two  groups  of 
authorities  in  the  same  territory,  namely,  the  Haitian 
government  and  the  American  treaty  officials,  and  thus 
contains  the  germs  of  innumerable  conflicts. 

Dispersal  of  the  Haitian  congress 

The  Haitian  government  having  elected  a  president  and 
adopted  the  treaty  began  to  hint  that  the  military  occupa- 
tion should  cease,  and  it  actually  received  a  written  promise 
from  the  American  minister  carrying  that  implication.  But 


216  OTTO   SCHOENRICH 

American  promises  in  Haiti  have  been  scraps  of  paper. 
The  occupation  still  continues,  it  has  charge  of  all  services 
it  cares  to  hold,  and  all  inquiries  with  respect  to  its  duration 
are  answered  with  evasions. 

Meanwhile  the  treaty  was  put  in  effect  and  the  American 
officials  for  which  it  provided  were  appointed  and  entered 
upon  office. 

In  1916  the  Haitian  congress  prepared  to  meet  on  the 
date  fixed  by  the  constitution.  Their  assembling  did  not 
suit  the  American  authorities,  but  instead  of  avoiding  it 
in  a  tactful  way  the  executive  was  induced  to  issue  an 
entirely  illegal  decree  dissolving  the  congress.  The  con- 
gressmen having  met  nevertheless,  then*  meeting  place  was 
raided  by  American  officers  and  marines,  who  dispersed  the 
congress  like  so  much  rabble. 

Later  the  government  called  the  election  of  a  consti- 
tutional assembly  to  draft  a  new  constitution  and  act  as 
legislature.  An  assembly  of  high-class  men  was  chosen, 
which  met  in  June,  1917.  It  soon  became  apparent  that 
the  assembly  labored  under  the  delusion  that  it  was  expected 
to  be  a  coordinate  governmental  body  and  not  a  rubber 
stamp.  Accordingly  the  Haitian  executive,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  American  authorities,  issued  a  decree  dis- 
solving the  assembly.  The  assembly  hall  was  surrounded 
by  constabulary  and  marines  and  the  members  and  spec- 
tators were  locked  in  for  several  hours,  apparently  to  make 
them  more  amenable  to  reason.  Then,  while  the  chief 
officers  of  the  constabulary  stood  about  with  drawn  revolvers, 
the  order  of  dispersal  was  given,  and  the  speaker  was  warned 
not  to  answer  a  word  on  pain  of  being  shot.  Since  that 
time  the  bothersome  system  of  government  through  a 
congress  has  been  dispensed  with. 

A  new  constitution  was  then  elaborated  in  executive 
circles  and  submitted  to  a  plebiscite.  It  was  adopted  by 
an  overwhelming  majority.  The  result  was  a  foregone 
conclusion,  for  no  one  had  been  permitted  to  discuss  the 
new  constitution,  all  voting  was  oral,  and  only  the  boldest 
dared  vote  against  it.  There  is  nothing  remarkable  about 
the  new  constitution,  however,  except  several  provisions 


INTERVENTION  IN  SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI          217 

fit  the  end.  One  of  these  postpones  the  next  election  of 
congress  until  January  of  an  even  year,  which  year  is  to  be 
fixed  by  decree  of  the  executive.  Thus,  in  a  perfectly 
constitutional  manner,  the  meeting  of  congress  can  be 
indefinitely  postponed. 

Meanwhile  legislative  powers  are  vested  in  a  council  of 
state  appointed  by  the  executive.  The  council  of  state  is 
agreeably  tractable;  last  year,  indeed,  two  members  fought 
against  a  measure,  but  they  were  promptly  removed  and 
their  places  were  taken  by  more  reasonable  men. 

Governmental  disorganization 

There  are  thus  in  Haiti  at  the  present  time  three  govern- 
ments: the  Haitian  government,  the  American  treaty  officials 
and  the  military  occupation.  The  first  is  impotent,  the 
second  inefficient,  the  third  indifferent  to  the  feelings  of  the 
native,  but  in  the  accomplishment  of  results  the  most 
efficient  of  the  three.  All  three  must  be  consulted  before 
it  is  possible  to  proceed  with  any  important  matter. 
The  situation  is  chaotic;  there  is  no  recognized  hand; 
the  functions  of  the  different  officials  overlap;  and  there 
is  constant  friction  between  the  Haitian  government  and 
the  treaty  officials;  between  the  engineering  department 
and  the  constabulary;  between  the  navy  officers  and  the 
marines;  between  the  sanitary  department,  the  marines, 
the  constabulary  and  the  financial  adviser.  When  an 
agreement  is  made  with  one  department  others  refuse 
to  allow  it  to  go  through,  and  no  one  desiring  to  take  up 
a  matter  knows  with  whom  to  begin  or  with  how  many 
departments  he  must  treat  before  it  is  finally  concluded. 
With  such  confusion  and  lack  of  cooperation  it  would  be 
impossible  even  for  the  most  competent  men  to  do  con- 
structive work. 

Accomplishments  under  American  intervention 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that  dis- 
tressingly little  has  been  accomplished  in  the  period  of 
almost  five  years  since  American  intervention  began.  Very 


218  OTTO   SCHOENBICH 

few   items  merit   mention,  and  several  of   these   require 
qualification: 

1.  Constabulary.    A  native  constabulary  has  been  organ- 
ized, as  to  the  expense  of  which  the  Haitians  complain 
considerably.    Almost  all  the  posts  of  officers  are  held  by 
Americans,  the  higher  posts  having  been  given  to  com- 
missioned officers  of  the  United  States  marines  and  the 
lower  posts  to  non-commissioned  officers.    Thus  sergeants 
and  corporals  of  marines  suddenly  found  themselves  lieu- 
tenants of  the  gendarmerie  and  virtual  monarchs  of  the 
districts  where  they  were  stationed.     (The  title  of  some 
of  these  lower  officers  is  "souslieutenant,"  which  is  occasion- 
ally given  the  English  pronunciation  of  "souse-lieutenant" 
by  persons  who  see  a  peculiar  significance  in  the  term.) 
The  amount  of  tact  displayed  by  such  warriors  in  dealing 
with  the  natives  can  be  left  to  the  imagination.    The  higher 
officials  were  men  experienced  in  military  affairs,  who  have 
proven  their  valor  many  times  in  expeditions  in  which  the 
marine   corps  has  participated.     Their   military  training 
inclined  them  to  be  autocratic  and  their  tact  was  unfortu- 
nately not  always  coextensive  with  their  valor. 

2.  Road-building.    Many  miles  of  road  have  been  built 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.    The  work  has  been  carried 
on  under  the  direction  of  marines,  on  the  theory  that  a 
marine  can  do  anything.    The  Haitians  claim  the  roads 
are  badly  built  and  that  much  money  was  wasted  on  them. 
The  later  roads  cost  less  as  they  were  built  under  the  corvee 
system,  authorized  by  an  old  law  long  in  disuse,  by  which 
the  country  people  could  be  forced  to  give  a  certain  amount 
of  labor  on  the  roads.    The  Haitians  complain  that  the 
marines  enforced  this  system  with  harshness  and  brutality. 

3.  Customs  service.    The  dishonesty  which  formerly  char- 
acterized the  Haitian  customs  service  has  been  eliminated. 
The  merchants,  native  and  foreign,   complain,  however, 
that  the  customs  laws  are  being  enforced  in  a  spirit  which 
tends  to  stifle  commerce  and  industry. 

4.  Sanitation  and  prisons.    A  number  of  ditches  have 
been   dug   around  various  towns  for   drainage  purposes, 


INTERVENTION  IN  SANTO   DOMINGO  AND   HAITI         219 

gutters  have  been  cleaned  and  the  prisons  are  kept  in 
sanitary  condition. 

That  is  about  the  whole  record  of  five  years.  In  spite 
of  the  army  of  American  officeholders  there  is  not  a  trace 
of  the  great  constructive  measures  which  distinguished  the 
two  interventions  in  Cuba  and  the  first  years  of  American 
rule  in  Porto  Rico. 

Default  in  public  debt 

Not  only  has  the  action  of  the  American  officials  been 
barren  of  results,  but  with  respect  to  the  public  indebtedness 
of  Haiti  it  has  been  positively  mischievous.  No  attempt 
has  been  made  to  liquidate  or  provide  for  the  pending 
claims  against  Haiti.  On  the  contrary,  the  first  act  of  the 
American  occupation  was  to  allow  the  foreign  and  internal 
debt  to  go  into  default,  and  that  default  continues  up  to 
the  present  day.  It  mattered  not  that  numerous  revenues 
were  specifically  pledged  to  the  service  of  these  debts: 
these  moneys  have  been  misapplied  to  other  governmental 
purposes. 

The  foreign  debt  is  held  mostly  in  France,  and  as  that 
country  was  being  financed  by  the  United  States,  it  did 
not  make  the  outcry  which  might  otherwise  have  been 
expected.  The  internal  debt  is  held  mostly  in  Haiti  and 
the  default  in  its  service  was  a  serious  matter.  As  there 
are  no  savings  banks  in  Haiti,  nor  large  enterprises  in  the 
securities  of  which  money  might  be  invested,  it  was  the 
custom  of  the  saving  Haitian  of  moderate  means  to  invest 
his  money  in  government  obligations.  The  bonds  of  the 
interior  debt  were  a  favorite  investment  for  doctors,  lawyers, 
employees  and  other  people  of  the  middle  class.  The 
default  brought  sadness  and  want  to  many  families.  It 
is  said  that  most  of  the  bondholders,  pressed  by  want,  have 
sold  their  papers  for  insignificant  sums  to  a  local  bank  or 
to  speculators  who  expect  to  redeem  them  from  a  loan 
now  in  contemplation. 


220  OTTO   SCHOENRICH 

Tactlessness  of  officials 

But  what  exasperates  the  Haitians  even  more  than  the 
mismanagement  of  their  affairs  is  the  air  of  superiority 
adopted  by  many  of  the  foreign  officials  and  the  rudeness 
and  contempt  with  which  the  natives  are  often  treated. 
Unfortunately  some  officers  forget  that  they  are  supposed 
to  be  in  Haiti  for  the  purpose  of  advancing  the  happiness 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  they  act  as  though  they  were  in  a 
conquered  country,  do  not  attempt  to  conceal  their  race 
prejudice  and  have  no  regard  for  the  feelings  of  the  natives. 
The  principal  offenders  are  officers  in  the  lower  grades  and 
former  non-commissioned  officers  or  privates  of  the  marines. 
In  Haiti  also  unfortunate  stories  are  current  of  torture  by 
water-cure  and  of  shooting  of  prisoners. 

The  provost  courts 

The  American  provost  courts  have  further  contributed 
to  the  popular  discontent.  Their  rule  is  said  to  be  that 
a  marine  can  do  no  wrong — to  a  native  Haitian.  They 
do  justice  as  they  see  it,  without  bothering  much  whether 
there  is  a  statute  prohibiting  the  offense.  Henri  Chauvet, 
the  editor  of  Le  Nouvelliste,  the  principal  newspaper  of 
Port-au-Prince,  learned  that  to  his  sorrow.  Having  received 
a  tip  that  Mr.  Ruan,  the  financial  adviser,  was  soon  to  be 
recalled,  he  published  it  in  his  paper.  He  was  called  before 
the  acting  chief  of  the  gendarmerie  and  invited  to  tell 
where  he  got  "that  damned  lie  about  Ruan."  Chauvet 
replied  that  he  had  printed  the  item  in  good  faith,  believing 
it  to  be  true,  but  that  he  would  print  a  denial  if  it  were 
not.  He  refused  to  give  the  name  of  his  informant,  as  he 
did  not  wish  to  get  a  friend  into  the  trouble  he  saw  coming 
to  himself.  Thereupon  he  was  fined  $300  and  kept  in 
jail  till  the  fine  was  paid  and  his  paper  suspended  for  three 
months.  The  joke  was  that  the  tip  was  correct  and  Mr. 
Ruan  was  actually  recalled  shortly  after. 

Nor  do  technicalities  of  procedure  disturb  the  provost 
courts.  Their  procedure  is  the  acme  of  simplicity  and 


INTERVENTION   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO   AND   HAITI        221 

promptness,  as  Mr.  Victor  Mangones,  of  a  well-known 
Haitian  family,  can  testify.  Mr.  Mangones  is  a  wholesale 
merchant,  and  as  a  sideline  to  his  regular  business  he  owns 
a  little  store  near  the  waterfront  of  Port-au-Prince,  which 
store  is  conducted  by  an  employee.  Now  the  occupation 
has  made  an  order  that  no  rum  shall  be  sold  to  the  marines : 
the  order  has  never  been  enacted  by  any  duly  constituted 
authority  in  Haiti  nor  has  it  been  published  according  to 
law,  but  the  provost  courts  do  not  consider  such  details. 
In  November,  1919,  several  thirsty  marines  sent  a  Haitian 
boy  to  the  store  of  Mangones  for  a  bottle  of  rum  and  the 
storekeeper  sold  it  to  him,  never  thinking  it  was  for  Ameri- 
cans. Somebody  told  the  provost  court,  which  immedi- 
ately sentenced  Mr.  Mangones,  the  owner  of  the  store,  to 
six  months'  imprisonment  at  hard  labor.  It  did  not  take 
the  trouble  to  summon  or  hear  him.  The  first  thing 
Mangones  knew  of  the  matter  was  when  he  was  seized, 
hustled  off  to  jail,  put  in  stripes,  and  made  to  work  breaking 
stones  on  the  rock-pile.  Fortunately  he  had  influential 
friends,  who  with  the  assistance  of  the  French  minister, 
obtained  his  release. 

Discontent  in  Haiti 

The  contemptuous  and  oppressive  conduct  of  their  new 
rulers  has  aroused  such  bitterness  among  the  populace,  that 
groups  of  malcontents  have  begun  to  form  in  the  woods. 
They  are  called  "cacos,"  the  Haitian  term  for  political 
bandits.  The  audacity  and  following  of  these  "cacos" 
became  such  that  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  last  January 
a  force  of  about  2000  dared  to  attack  the  capital  city, 
Port-au-Prince.  They  penetrated  far  into  the  city,  and 
it  was  not  until  after  they  had  burned  a  block  of  buildings 
and  battled  for  over  an  hour  that  they  could  be  scattered 
by  the  marines  and  gendarmerie.  This  incident  goes  to 
show  that  the  Haitians  are  exasperated  to  the  point  of 
open  rebellion.  Yet  such  is  the  disorganization  of  govern- 
ment that  no  improvement  in  the  situation  is  in  sight. 


222  OTTO  SCHOENRICH 

CONCLUSION 

Thus  a  review  of  developments  in  Santo  Domingo  and 
Haiti  in  the  last  five  years  is  not  gratifying  to  our  national 
pride.  When  we  consider  the  splendid  achievements  in 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  the  record  made  in  Santo  Domingo 
must  bring  us  deep  disappointment,  while  the  mess  in 
Haiti  must  awaken  feelings  of  resentment  and  shame. 

I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  impression,  however,  that  the 
blame  for  conditions  rests  entirely  upon  the  local  American 
authorities,  for  most  of  them  have  been  earnest  workers 
and  have  done  their  duty  as  they  saw  it.  The  chief  fault 
is  higher  up,  in  the  Washington  government,  which  has 
permitted  these  conditions  to  arise  and  develop.  The  com- 
plaints to  which  I  have  in  general  terms  referred,  have  been 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  state  department  many  times 
but  without  avail.  The  Washington  government,  in  its 
dealings  with  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo,  has  displayed  a 
disregard  of  the  rights  of  the  inhabitants,  an  obtuseness 
with  respect  to  the  obligations  devolving  upon  the  United 
States,  and  an  indifference  to  the  opinion  of  Latin-America 
and  the  world,  which  are  simply  incomprehensible. 

Not  only  from  these  countries  do  we  hear  complaints, 
but  also  from  the  Virgin  Islands,  whose  inhabitants  claim 
that  they  had  more  freedom  and  received  more  consider- 
ation under  Danish  rule  than  at  present.  It  seems  that 
whenever  in  the  last  five  years  the  United  States  have 
assumed  the  government  of  another  country,  the  coming 
of  the  American  flag  has  signified  the  suppression  of  popular 
institutions  and  the  setting  up  of  an  arbitrary  and  inefficient 
militarism. 

Our  government  seems  disposed  to  forget  at  tunes  that 
our  position  in  those  countries  is  that  of  a  trustee.  We 
are  therefore  in  honor  bound  to  exercise  more  vigilance  with 
reference  to  their  affairs  than  with  respect  to  our  own  and 
use  extraordinary  care  in  choosing  men  and  enacting  meas- 
ures. Failing  to  do  so  we  shall  prove  false  to  our  trust, 
and  when  we  stoop  to  use  our  authority  for  the  purpose  of 
dispensing  party  patronage,  as  has  unfortunately  repeatedly 


INTERVENTION  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO  AND  HAITI         223 

occurred,  we  are  in  the  position  of  a  trustee  who  uses  the 
trust  funds  for  his  own  ends. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  American  spirit 
of  common  sense  and  fair  dealing  will  eventually  assert 
itself  and  that  Santo  Domingo  and  Haiti  will  yet  have  oc- 
casion to  praise  American  administration,  generosity  and 
justice.  Let  us  hope  that  this  result  may  soon  be  attained, 
to  the  benefit  of  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries,  to  our 
own  satisfaction,  and  to  the  glory  of  the  American  name. 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO, 
HAITI,  AND  VIRGIN  ISLANDS 

By  Colonel  George  C.  Thorpe,  United  States  Marine  Corps? 

Recently  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Brigade  of  Marines  in 

Occupation  of  the  Dominican  Republic 

As  I  have  come  to  this  conference  with  a  paper  previously 
prepared,  without  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  dispar- 
agements to  be  heard  here  today  with  reference  to  our  govern- 
ment's conduct  of  affairs  in  the  West  Indies,  I  can  reply 
specifically  thereto  only  by  way  of  remarks  interposed  here 
and  there. 

In  advance  I  will  reveal  my  point  of  view  (my  prejudice, 
you  may  say)  by  confessing  my  complete  surprise  at  the 
picture  painted  by  an  earlier  speaker  whose  representation 
of  conditions  in  Santo  Domingo  is  so  foreign  to  my  under- 
standing of  them  that  I  began  to  wonder  if  I  really  had  been 
in  that  country  at  all,  but  had  only  dreamed  of  being  there, 
until  I  learned  that  the  critical  speaker  has  not  been  there 
himself  for  many  years,  certainly  not  since  the  beginning 
of  the  American  occupation.  I  am  quite  certain  that  I 
reported  at  Santo  Domingo  City  as  chief  of  staff  of  the 
brigade  of  marines  in  occupation  of  the  Dominican  Repub- 
lic in  February,  1917.  In  that  capacity  as  well  as  by  special 
detail,  I  visited  many  parts  of  the  country — even  the  most 
remote  and  unfrequented — and,  as  in  a  rather  wide  expe- 
rience of  travel  I  always  find  people  the  most  promising 
objects  of  interest,  it  was  natural  that  wherever  I  went  I 
made  friends  with  the  natives  and  talked  with  them  on 
intimate  terms.  In  riding  up  to  a  mountain  hut  with  my 
escort,  we  would  dismount  and  exchange  ceremoniously 
polite  greetings  with  the  family.  Whatever  is  strange  and 
mysterious  (as  is  the  foreigner  to  these  ignorant  country- 
men) is  alarming  or  terrifying.  They,  in  seeing  armed 
Americans  for  the  first  time,  would  regard  us  with  frightened 

224 


AMERICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         225 

expectancy.  But  a  seat  would  be  offered,  followed  soon  by 
a  cup  of  black  coffee.  By  the  time  I  had  asked  the  names 
and  ages  of  children  gaping  from  every  window  and  corner, 
and  had  told  them  I  had  little  ones  at  home  myself — "one 
as  old  as  Carmita  and  another  as  big  as  Pedro" — the  ice 
was  broken  and  they  saw  there  was  nothing  terrible  about 
the  foreigner  who  knew  that  children  liked  sweetmeats. 
Many  of  such  wayside  hospitalities  ended  hi  the  exchange  of 
simple  presents.  Incidentally,  of  course,  I  learned  their 
grievances  if  they  had  any  and  could  estimate  their  attitudes. 

During  the  last  seven  months  of  my  stay  of  nearly  two 
years,  I  was  in  command  of  the  eastern  district  composed  of 
two  provinces  and  part  of  a  third,  where  there  was  a  so- 
called  insurrection  which  was  not  a  real  insurrection  because: 
(1)  the  participants  were  mostly  criminals  (or  bandits)  who 
were  interested  only  by  the  attraction  of  adventure  and 
license;  (2)  they  had  no  propaganda  or  other  announcement 
of  any  grievances  against  the  government;  (3)  their  activi- 
ties were  directed  far  more  against  peaceable  Dominicans 
than  against  armed  forces  of  the  government;  (4)  their 
acts  were  typically  criminal,  consisting  of  robbery,  murder  of 
Dominicans  who  would  not  meet  their  demands,  destruction 
of  Dominican  property,  and  fiendish  crimes  against  very 
young  girls.  When  the  leader,  Vicentico,  and  his  followers 
surrendered  to  me  in  July,  1917,  he  told  me  they  had  had 
no  grievance  against  the  government  or  against  Americans. 
That  the  vast  majority  of  Dominicans  were  entirely  un- 
sympathetic with  these  bandits  was  evidenced  by  the  fact 
that  the  archbishop  informed  the  military  governor  that  the 
provincial  parishes  had  set  aside  a  day  of  prayer  and  thanks- 
giving over  the  restoration  of  order  following  the  surrender 
of  Vicentico's  bands.  Immediately  following  that  event 
hundreds  of  new  farms  were  opened  by  Dominicans  in  the 
rural  districts  of  Seibo  province. 

While  conducting  operations  for  suppression  of  banditry, 
I  lived  for  months  in  the  rural  towns  and  daily  had  long 
talks  with  representative  natives;  we  used  to  estimate  every 
conceivable  possibility  and  make  plans  for  future  progress 
— of  how  we  could  build  roads  and  bridges,  develop  indus- 


226  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

tries,  advance  agriculture,  extend  education,  and  promote 
cooperation.  Whenever  I  suggested  cooperative  enter- 
prise they  invariably  assured  me  that  any  such  mutual 
undertakings  as  were  represented  by  incorporation  were  im- 
possible because  of  mutual  distrust  and  because  no  one 
would  be  satisfied  with  his  share.  I  believe  that  explains 
why  the  Dominicans  are  not  able  to  sustain  self-govern- 
ment :  they  have  no  social  feeling — no  cooperative  instincts. 

I  recall  that  when  I  was  in  that  country,  I  was  not  in- 
sensible to  the  fact  that  some  young  upper  class  Dominicans 
felt  the  humiliation  of  seeing  a  foreign  people  ruling  then- 
country,  and  while  I  tacitly  sympathized,  I  knew  (and  they 
often  assured  me)  that  they  realized  it  was  a  situation  for 
which  they  could  thank  themselves,  and  however  much  they 
might  regret  the  suspension  of  their  sovereignty  they 
hoped  our  government  would  hold  to  its  task  until  the 
Dominican  people  became  fit,  through  education  and  other- 
wise. My  ultimate  acquaintance  extended  not  only  to  the 
poor  country  people  but  to  the  most  educated  classes  in 
the  cities  hi  whose  homes  I  was  a  frequent  visitor. 

To  understand  why  it  was  necessary  at  last  for  our  govern- 
ment to  occupy  Santo  Domingo,  I  must  sketch  briefly 
the  cardinal  material  items  of  Dominican  history,  even  at 
the  risk  of  telling  you  much  that  you  already  know,  and  I 
believe  the  later  events  cited  will  suggest  the  reluctance 
with  which  our  government  intervened. 

In  this  view  we  must  take  the  two  republics  of  Santo 
Domingo  and  Haiti  together,  forming  one  island  of  28,249 
square  miles  (as  large  as  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire 
combined)  situated  between  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico. 

From  the  time  of  its  discovery  by  Christopher  Columbus 
to  the  Peace  of  Ryswick  (1697),  the  island  was  under  Spanish 
Governors.  Early  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  energetic 
governor  Ovando  impressed  the  Arawaks  so  severely  hi 
agricultural  and  building  enterprises  that,  unaccustomed  to 
work,  they  broke  under  the  strain,  so  that  the  Spaniards 
had  to  import  Africans.  The  more  vigorous  negro,  allied 
with  European  diseases,  proved  a  too  strong  combination 
against  the  Indian.  It  is  said  that  some  two  million  disap- 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         227 

peared — died  or  carried  off  as  slaves.  Although  the  Indian, 
as  a  race,  vanished  from  the  country,  present  day  Domin- 
icans honor  Indian  traditions,  particularly  the  memory  of 
Princess  Anacaona  whose  friendliness  to  the  Spaniards  was 
most  treacherously  rewarded. 

It  was  not  only  against  the  Indians  that  the  Spanish 
colonists  had  to  fight,  but  during  the  first  two  hundred 
years  of  European  occupation  they  were  troubled  with 
numerous  uprisings  of  the  blacks  and  were  attacked  from 
without  by  the  French,  Dutch  and  English. 

In  1585,  Sir  Francis  Drake  initiated  England's  strategy 
against  Spain  by  his  piratical  thrust  at  the  Spanish  Main 
through  Santo  Domingo  City,  then  a  most  important  point 
on  the  strategic  map  of  the  world.  He  utilized  disloyal 
natives  to  secure  a  foothold  on  the  island. 

The  Peace  of  Ryswick  settled  the  sovereignty  by  giving 
France  the  western  third  (now  Haiti),  and  Spain  the  re- 
mainder. Haiti  prospered  for  a  time  and  Santo  Domingo 
declined  under  the  yoke  of  slavery  and  through  isolation 
until  1740  when  the  opening  of  its  ports  to  foreign  commerce 
brought  about  improvement. 

During  the  French  Revolution  the  two  colonies  took 
sides  and  carried  on  a  border  warfare. 

The  Treaty  of  Basle,  1795,  ceded  the  whole  island  to 
France  and  the  French  administration  in  Haiti  became  su- 
preme. Spanish  colonists  quit  the  country  in  a  body, 
going  to  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  Venezuela.  It  is  said  that 
40,000  thus  left  their  homes. 

By  1804  the  strength  of  the  Haitians  had  become  so  for- 
midable that  a  Haitian  Republic  was  proclaimed  over  the 
entire  island.  After  much  figthing,  the  French  reestablished 
their  authority  over  the  Haitians. 

In  1808,  a  revolution  broke  out  in  Seibo  (the  incubator  of 
insurrection  ever  since),  and  with  the  help  of  the  English 
the  Spanish  flag  was  hoisted  the  next  year.  Spanish  do- 
minion was  confirmed  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  1814.  A 
long  period  of  seven  years'  comparative  peace  was  followed 
by  a  revolution  against  the  Spanish  which  succeeded  so  far 
as  to  establish  an  independent  sovereign  state  called  Spanish 


228  GEORGE   C.  THOEPE 

Haiti  which  lasted  a  few  weeks  when  the  Haitians  invaded 
and  established  themselves  so  firmly  that  they  were  able 
to  hold  on  for  twenty-two  years  until,  in  1844,  inhabitants  of 
Spanish  descent  succeeded  in  a  revolution  that  established 
the  Dominican  Republic  with  Gen.  Pedro  Santana  as  first 
president.  He  lasted  for  nearly  four  years  when  a  revolu- 
tion resulted  in  elevating  Gen.  Manuel  Jimenez  to  the 
Presidency. 

Another  revolution  the  next  year,  displaced  Jimenez  by 
Col.  Buenaventura  Baez  who  served  out  his  term  and  was 
succeeded  by  the  reelection  of  Santana. 

Revolutions  and  wars  with  Haiti  filled  the  next  twelve 
years  when  the  Dominican  president  called  for  Spanish  aid 
to  pacify  the  country.  Spam  effected  a  military  occupation, 
but  a  revolution  broke  out  two  years  later  which  lasted 
until  1865  when  Spam  withdrew. 

Revolutions  were  now  a  regular  institution  and  an  enor- 
mous debt  was  piled  up.  During  President  Grant's  admin- 
istration there  was  strong  Dominican  demand  for  annexa- 
tion to  the  United  States  endorsed  by  Grant  which,  however, 
failed  through  opposition  hi  our  Congress. 

New  governments  were  formed,  through  revolution,  in 
1865,  1866,  1867,  1873,  1876  (two),  1878  (two),  1879. 

In  1882  General  Heureaux  (of  Haitian  descent  and  known 
by  the  nick-name  of  Lili)  became  president  and  by  the 
exercise  of  strong-armed  government  held  his  office  for  the 
legal  two-year  term.  After  a  bitter  struggle  his  candidate, 
General  Billini,  succeeded  to  the  presidency,  but,  unable  to 
support  the  demands  of  his  supporters  for  preferment, 
resigned  in  a  few  months  and  was  succeeded  by  the  vice- 
president,  Gil,  which  brought  about  a  revolution  and  re- 
established Heureaux  hi  the  presidency  who  held  office, 
by  murder,  tyranny  and  graft,  until  1899  when  he  was 
assassinated.  Dominican  annals  are  full  of  stories  of  this 
monster's  presidential  adventures,  according  to  which  it 
appears  that  as  soon  as  Lili  suspected  anyone,  even  a  blood 
relative,  of  ambition,  he  contrived  and  effected  his  murder. 
He  was  ingenious  in  diabolical  methods. 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS  IN  SANTO   DOMINGO         229 

The  vice-president,  succeeding  Lili,  was  soon  overthrown 
by  a  revolution  headed  by  General  Horacio  Vasquez  who 
held  office  less  than  three  months.  By  a  controlled  election 
Gen.  J.  I.  Jimenez  was  made  president  and  Vasquez  vice- 
president.  Vasquez  headed  a  revolution  against  his  con- 
frere and  displaced  him  in  1902. 

Vasquez  was  soon  forced  out  and  was  succeeded  by  Gil 
hi  March,  1903.  In  October  of  the  same  year  General 
Morales  headed  a  revolution  and  marched  on  the  capital. 
He  was  elected  president  in  the  f  ollowing  June,  with  Caceras 
as  vice-president. 

The  heavy  expense  of  revolutions  and  the  inefficient  (not 
to  say  corrupt)  collection  of  revenues,  had  entailed  a  con- 
stant increase  of  public  debt,  and  by  1904  the  interest  was 
entirely  in  default.  Foreign  governments  began  pressure 
for  payments  due  their  citizens.  Arrangements  were  made 
to  liquidate  the  debts  by  pledging  customs  receipts  and  an 
American  agent  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  Puerta  Plata 
custom  house.  Other  foreign  nations  demanded  similar 
rights.  In  the  face  of  imminent  danger  of  foreign  interven- 
tion, the  Dominican  Republic  applied  to  the  United  States 
for  assistance.  In  1905  an  agreement  with  the  United 
States  went  into  effect  whereby  the  Dominican  customs 
receipts  were  to  be  collected  by  the  United  States,  and  provi- 
sion made  for  the  payment  of  the  debt. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  revolutionists  could  no  longer  count 
upon  capturing  'customs  houses,  revolutions  continued. 
President  Morales  fled  and  resigned.  Caceras  succeeded 
him.  A  bond  issue  of  $20,000,000  was  made  for  conversion 
of  old  debts,  the  principal  creditors  reducing  their  claims 
by  about  one-half. 

In  1907,  a  new  fiscal  treaty  was  confirmed  by  the  United 
States  Senate  and  Dominican  Congress  which  provided  for 
a  general  receiver  of  Dominican  customs  appointed  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Conditions  unproved;  funds  were  set  aside  for  the  debt 
and  for  public  improvements.  Caceras  was  reflected. 

In  1911  Caceras  was  assassinated.  The  election  of  his 
successor  brought  on  a  revolution  which  lasted  for  several 


230  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

months  and  as  the  Dominican  government  could  not  restore 
order  it  called  in  the  good  offices  of  the  United  States 
which  sent  a  commission  to  Santo  Domingo.  The  various 
factions  were  brought  together  in  the  choice  of  the  Arch- 
bishop Noel  as  president.  The  latter  was  soon  in  despair 
and  fled.  Then  the  Dominican  Congress  elected  Bordas 
Valdez  who  served  a  year.  Revolutions  broke  out  again 
and  the  United  States  again  came  to  the  rescue  by  sending 
a  commission  which  brought  the  parties  together  to  choose 
a  provisional  president  (Ramon  Baez,  son  of  late  President 
Buenaventura  Baez)  and  conducted  a  popular  election 
which  chose  ex-president  J.  J.  Jimenez.  Matters  seemed 
settled  for  a  tune,  and  conditions  unproved.  But  in  less 
than  a  year  and  half  the  secretary  of  war,  Desiderio  Arias, 
executed  a  coup  while  the  president  was  at  his  country 
home,  and  through  command  of  the  military  forces,  seized 
the  government  and  imprisoned  the  loyal  officers.  At  the 
request  of  President  Jimenez  marines  landed  from  American 
ships  and  restored  order  in  the  capital.  Jimenez  resigned 
and  the  Dominican  Congress  elected  Dr.  Carvajal.  The 
United  States  refused  recognition  of  the  new  government 
unless  it  would  give  assurance  of  maintenance  of  order  and 
honest  control  of  finances,  to  which  end  a  new  treaty  would 
be  required,  providing  for  collection  of  customs  under 
American  supervision,  appointment  of  a  financial  adviser, 
and  establishment  of  a  constabulary  officered  by  Americans. 
Carvajal  refused  consent  to  these  terms.  Matters  drifted 
for  more  than  a  year,  when  in  view  of  the  hopelessness  of 
the  situation,  marines  were  landed  some  miles  west  of  the 
city  (as  Sir  Francis  Drake's  troops  had  done  in  1585)  and 
marched  upon  the  capital  which  was  promptly  evacuated 
by  Dominican  forces  under  Arias. 

Arias  marched  across  the  island  and  secured  his  position 
in  the  mountains  at  Santiago  and  thereabouts. 

In  June,  1916,  the  Fourth  Regiment  of  Marines,  pro- 
ceeding from  San  Diego,  Cal.,  landed  at  Monte  Cristi, 
under  command  of  Col.  J.  H.  Pendleton  (now  Brigadier-gen- 
eral) who  was  placed  in  command  of  all  forces  operating 
on  shore  in  the  Republic. 


AMERICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         231 

There  were  two  principal  routes  from  the  coast  to  San- 
tiago: one  by  way  of  a  muddy  trail  for  about  80  miles 
climbing  up  grade  flanked  by  heavy  underbrush;  the  other 
from  Puerta  Plata,  a  much  shorter  and  steeper  route  served 
by  a  dilapidated  cog  railway.  The  advance  upon  Santiago 
was  made  by  a  column  from  each  of  these  ports,  and  after 
about  ten  days'  marching  and  several  engagements  against 
vastly  superior  numbers  of  insurgents  hidden  behind  con- 
cealed intrenchments,  Colonel  Pendleton's  force  reached  the 
vicinity  of  Santiago  and  was  met  by  peace  commissioners. 
All  the  insurgents  surrendered  or  dispersed  and  Arias  sub- 
mitted to  American  control  which  was  at  once  established 
militarily  throughout  the  country  under  the  administration 
of  Rear- Admiral  Caperton. 

Endeavors  to  reestablish  government  under  Dominican 
administration  having  proved  fruitless,  the  military  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  in  the  Dominican  Republic  was 
set  up  November  29,  1916,  with  Capt.  (now  rear-admiral) 
H.  S.  Knapp  as  military  governor.  His  first  proclamation 
required  the  disarmament  of  the  population.  Mountains 
of  weapons  of  all  epochs  since  the  fifteenth  century  and  a 
great  deal  of  ammunition  and  explosives  were  surrendered 
or  captured  during  the  following  year.  And  still  enough 
was  held  back  to  support  the  prosecution  of  a  formidable 
amount  of  banditry  for  two  years  more.  During  the  present 
occupation  there  have  been  116  distinct  fights  or  skirmishes 
between  marines  and  Dominican  bandits,  resulting  in  the 
killing  of  5  marine  officers  and  9  enlisted  men,  and  wounding 
of  7  officers  and  34  enlisted  men,  i.e.,  55  battle  casualties 
on  our  side.  Dominican  casualties  are  not  known  but  cer- 
tainly are  many  times  our  aggregate. 

That  brings  us  historically  up  to  the  present. 

As  to  the  form  of  governmental  administration  in  Santo 
Domingo : 

The  military  governor  (Real- Admiral  Snowden  at  present) 
"administers"  the  Dominican  Republic.  He  is  assisted  by 
cabinet  ministers  whose  functions  are  practically  the  same 
as  under  Dominican  presidency,  incumbents  being  Ameri- 
cans. The  entire  Dominican  judiciary  has  been  left  in 
office. 


232  GEORGE   C.  THORPE 

There  are  twelve  provinces,  each  with  a  native  governor 
who,  if  he  is  the  right  kind  of  man,  may  do  a  great  deal  in 
leading  his  people  into  peaceful  pursuits  and  industry,  and 
hi  developing  public  works  as  did,  especially,  Governor 
Elpidio  Morales  of  Seibo  in  1917. 

The  country  is  further  subdivided  into  60  communes 
which  are  governed  by  communal  councils  composed  of  the 
best  citizens,  appointed  by  the  military  governor.  Cities 
and  the  larger  towns  are  governed  by  councils  called 
ayuntamientos. 

From  a  personal  knowledge  of  the  happenings  in  Santo 
Domingo,  I  can  say  that  the  American  administration  of 
that  government  has  been  actuated  by  a  high  sense  of  its 
responsibilities  and  with  a  most  earnest  desire,  at  every 
step,  to  build  soundly  for  the  present  and  future  good  of 
the  Dominican  people.  Nothing  could  be  finer  than  the 
way  our  officers,  from  lieutenant  up  (with  rare  exceptions) 
have  estimated  particular  Dominican  situations  and  pro- 
vided therefor. 

During  the  World  War,  we  had  to  get  along  with  few 
troops  hi  Santo  Domingo,  and  small  detachments  were 
widely  scattered.  I  recall  that  a  second  lieutenant  with  a 
few  marines  was  sent  up  into  a  troubled  province  to  do  his 
best  toward  restoring  order.  It  was  a  remote  region  and 
possibly  never  had  enjoyed  the  blessing  of  good  govern- 
ment. The  better  class  of  natives  were  impressed  by  this 
young  man's  earnestness  and  under  his  guidance  all  sorts 
of  items  of  elementary  progress  were  initiated:  sanitation, 
police,  road  building,  suppression  of  brigandage,  enforce- 
ment of  court  decrees,  collection  of  taxes,  etc.  A  letter 
came  to  the  capital,  signed  by  hundreds  of  natives,  asking 
that  the  young  officer  be  made  a  permanent  governor  to 
guide  them  forever.  In  the  other  end  of  the  island,  a 
young  American  captain  of  constabulary  (a  sergeant  of 
marines)  had  similarly  interested  the  people  in  progress 
and  when  he  was  murdered  by  a  bandit  he  was  universally 
mourned  as  a  Dominican  martyr:  everyone  wore  a  special 
commemorative  badge  in  his  honor. 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         233 

Everywhere  in  the  island  the  troops  make  friends  with 
the  people  and  are  unpopular  only  with  the  criminal  or  the 
flippant  agitator  with  unworthy  political  amis. 

From  the  first,  the  military  government  has  truly  esti- 
mated its  mission  to  be:  (1)  To  promote  education,  primary 
and  vocational;  (2)  to  build  roads;  (3)  to  create  an  effective 
police  force;  (4)  to  cultivate  a  regard  for  law  and  order; 
(5)  to  place  property  rights  on  a  firmer  basis,  particularly 
as  to  land  titles;  (6)  to  stabilize  the  finances  of  the  country; 
(7)  and  at  the  same  time,  to  respect  Dominican  institutions 
and  sentiments  as  far  as  may  be. 

As  to  the  realization  of  these  amis:  Under  Dominican 
regime  there  was  no  real  school  administration.  Primary 
education  was  mostly  confined  to  schools  with  one  or  two 
teachers  in  most  important  towns;  no  rural  schools.  Not 
over  18,000  pupils  in  all  schools,  average  attendance  40 
per  cent.  Teachers  were  very  poorly  paid  and  often  their 
salaries  were  corruptly  withheld.  The  military  govern- 
ment's reform  was  based  upon  a  report  of  a  Dominican 
commission.  There  is  now  a  school  system  with  the  country 
divided  into  50  school  districts  of  6  departments,  acting 
under  a  minister  of  education.  There  were  (January  1, 
1920)  1468  teachers,  free  of  political  influence,  whose  salaries 
are  at  least  four  times  the  supposed  salaries  of  the  teachers 
under  the  Dominican  regime.  There  are  195  primary 
schools,  7  secondary  and  normal,  6  completely  developed 
industrials  for  girls  and  others  under  formation,  2  schools 
of  fine  arts,  2  correctional  schools,  central  university.  As 
against  18,000  pupils  there  are  now  more  than  100,000  and 
the  average  attendance  is  85  per  cent.  There  used  to  be 
almost  no  school  equipment  and  even  in  the  cities  there  were 
no  distinctive  school  buildings — only  miserable  dirty  places 
rented.  During  the  past  two  years  more  than  $200,000 
worth  of  school  equipment  has  been  distributed.  Schools 
benefit  by  modern  methods;  physical,  moral  and  vocational 
training.  As  there  is  more  than  90  per  cent  illiteracy  in 
Santo  Domingo  the  Department  of  Education  estimates 
its  mission  to  be  to  extend  rudimentary  education  until 
illiteracy  is  banished,  to  satisfy  the  basic  mission  of  the 


234  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

military  government  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  self-sup- 
porting democracy. 

The  agricultural  college  maintains  an  experimental  sta- 
tion near  the  capital,  and  thirty  instructors  are  placed 
throughout  the  country  to  give  local  instruction  to  farmers. 
The  government  sells  modern  agricultural  machinery  at 
cost  to  promote  their  use. 

A  national  highway  over  the  Cordilleras,  from  the  capital 
to  Monte  Cristi,  connecting  the  northern  and  southern 
coasts,  estimated  to  cost  $3,000,000  is  60  per  cent  complete. 
Various  other  highways  have  been  finished  or  are  in  course 
of  construction.  In  the  absence  of  common  carrier  rail- 
ways in  the  southern  provinces,  these  automobile  roads 
are  of  first  importance  to  promote  husbandry  because  with- 
out them  there  is  no  reasonably  available  transportation 
for  marketing  produce.  Road  building  would  have  been 
advanced  much  more  if  war  conditions  had  not  impeded 
the  importation  of  materials. 

The  government  owned  railway  from  Puerta  Plata  has 
been  unproved  and  its  earnings  trebled. 

A  native  constabulary  called  Guardia  National  Domin- 
icana  of  a  strength  of  about  2000  officers  and  men  has  been 
brought  to  a  high  state  of  efficiency.  Since  its  organi- 
zation hi  February,  1918,  there  has  been  no  case  of  a  native 
Guardia' s  defection  or  desertion  to  insurgents  or  bandits. 
These  troops  are  scattered  in  small  detachments  all  over 
the  country,  and  supported  by  American  marines  concen- 
trated at  important  points,  maintain  order,  perform  police 
duties,  and  serve  the  courts  (in  capacities  analogous  to 
that  of  sheriff  or  bailiff),  furnish  prison  guards,  etc.  Effort 
to  utilize  native  officers  has  not  met  with  success.  We  were 
very  anxious  to  avoid  using  American  officers  therefor, 
especially  during  the  World  War,  but  in  nearly  every  case 
the  native  officer  failed  to  hold  his  men  together  and,  with- 
out proper  control,  the  native  soldiery  was  inclined  to 
impose  upon  the  civilians. 

The  land  ownership  question  is  probably  the  most  difficult 
one  to  reform  as  the  state  of  land  titles  is  one  of  hopeless 
confusion,  due  to  the  involved  usages  of  land  tenure — espe- 


AMERICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         235 

cially  as  to  communal  lands  (tracts  owned  in  common  by 
several  persons  with  no  division  upon  descent).  The  mili- 
tary government  is  proceeding  conservatively  with  this 
problem  so  as  to  safeguard  the  rights  of  real  owners:  a  wise 
precaution  especially  in  view  of  the  ignorance  of  the  masses 
as  to  means  of  defending  their  titles.  The  government 
has  hi  project  a  law,  about  to  be  promulgated,  providing 
for  the  division  of  undivided  lands,  with  guaranteed  titles. 
The  land  is  not  of  sufficient  area  to  satisfy  the  claims  of 
all,  and  an  honest  adjudication  will  result  in  loss  to  many 
people.  A  political  government  could  never  hope  to 
solve  this  problem  because  it  could  not  withstand  the  pres- 
sure of  dissatisfied  claimants.  Under  the  military  govern- 
ment, the  practice  of  law  has  been  placed  on  a  higher  plane. 
The  profession  has  even  been  thrown  open  to  women  and  one 
Dominican  woman  is  now  prominent  at  the  legal  bar  in 
the  capital. 

The  reform  of  the  Dominican  judiciary  is  in  progress. 
Penal  proceedings  have  been  simplified  and  trials  correspond- 
ingly expedited.  Formerly  many  cases  avoided  trial  by 
prescription  of  time  before  their  cases  could  be  reached  on 
the  docket.  Now  the  criminal  dockets  are  being  cleared. 

The  military  government  has  accomplished  a  great  deal 
hi  prison  reform.  Nothing  could  have  been  worse  than 
the  conditions  of  prisons  and  prisoners  as  we  found  them. 
All  this  is  being  placed  on  a  modern  basis,  as  to  sanitation, 
segregation,  probation,  training,  etc. 

Civil  service  is  being  gradually  extended  to  all  depart- 
ments of  the  government. 

As  to  finances:  When  the  United  States  took  over  the 
administration  of  Dominican  finances,  the  account  of  the 
government  was  overdrawn  in  the  sum  of  $14,234.63,  and 
payment  of  salaries  and  various  claims  were  greatly  in 
arrears.  The  military  government  paid  all  1916  indebted- 
ness, has  met  all  accruing  expenses  of  government  and  on 
October  1,  1919,  had  nearly  $4,000,000  in  the  treasury. 

The  military  government  has  reorganized  the  internal 
revenue  department  and  without  increase  of  rates  the  col- 
lections have  almost  trebled. 


236  GEORGE   C.  THORPE 

A  claims  commission  created  by  the  military  govern- 
ment, in  session  now  for  about  three  years,  will  complete 
its  hearings  and  reports  about  March,  1920.  Then  the 
entire  floating  debt  of  the  Dominican  Republic  will  have 
been  refunded.  The  government  is  issuing  bonds  (about 
$5,000,000)  in  payment. 

As  a  re'sume'  of  the  public  debt,  it  may  be  said  that  as 
against  the  $20,000,000  bond  issue  there  are  assets  in  the 
sinking  fund  (Sept.  30,  1919)  of  $8,210,738.83,  leaving  a 
balance  of  liabilities  to  be  liquidated,  amounting  to  $11,789,- 
261.17.  If  the  Dominicans  criticize  this  management  of 
their  finances,  as  an  earlier  speaker  claims,  what  can  they  say 
of  their  own  management  which  failed  even  to  pay  interest. 

The  Dominican  people  are  grateful  to  the  military  govern- 
ment for  shipping  aid  rendered  during  the  World  War. 
Had  the  United  States  not  been  hi  occupation  of  Santo 
Domingo,  the  latter's  products  could  not  have  been  mar- 
keted, with  the  exception  of  sugar  which  was  needed  by 
the  belligerents.  The  military  government  was  very  active 
in  securing  shipping  for  the  Dominican  products  and  even 
carried  them  on  naval  transports,  not  only  thus  saving  the 
people  from  distress,  but  placing  millions  of  dollars  in  the 
pockets  of  then*  citizens  by  the  continuance  of  normal 
trade  or  better. 

HAITI 

It  is  well  known  to  you  that  the  European  governments 
that  colonized  Haiti,  finding  it  rich  hi  resources,  exploited 
it  with  the  fierceness  characteristic  of  buccaneering  times. 
Hosts  of  African  slaves  were  brought  there  directly  from 
the  jungle,  were  worked  unmercifully  and  were  treated 
worse  than  beasts.  These  slaves  remained  savages  and 
did  not  even  learn  then*  master's  languages.  Some  of  the 
strongest  and  most  intelligent  summoned  spirit  to  escape 
from  the  plantations  and  mines,  taking  refuge  in  the  moun- 
tains; they  were  called  cacos  (probably  an  African  term). 
Then  hi  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution  and  during  the 
teachings  of  the  equality  of  man,  French  agitators  came  to 
Haiti  and  told  the  slaves  that  they  were  as  good  as  their 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         237 

masters  and  that  in  France  the  oppressed  had  risen  and 
killed  off  their  oppressors.  So  the  blacks  rose  in  Haiti 
and  gradually  exterminated  the  whites;  this  movement  went 
so  far  as  finally  to  result  in  the  murder  of  every  inhabitant 
with  any  white  blood  (even  the  mulattoes) .  Napoleon  sent 
an  army  of  10,000  soldiers  to  subdue  Haiti.  Its  base  was 
in  the  north  at  Cape  Haitian.  At  the  same  tune  England 
sent  a  force  into  the  south  which  took  Port  au  Prince  by 
storm.  The  yellow  fever  defeated  both  forces,  but  the 
English  escaped  fairly  well  by  being  supported  by  their 
fleet.  The  French,  not  so  served,  perished  almost  to  a 
man.  Visitors  at  Cape  Haitian  may  now  see  the  graves  of 
the  French  general,  Napoleon's  kinsman. 

The  outstanding  result  of  the  greater  success  of  native 
arms  against  the  foreigner  in  Haiti,  over  those  of  the  native 
against  the  foreigner  in  Santo  Domingo,  is  that  Haiti,  now 
known  as  the  Black  Republic,  is  far  less  civilized  than  Santo 
Domingo,  known  as  the  Mulatto  Republic.  While  there  is 
a  high  percentage  of  ignorance  in  both  countries,  the  Do- 
minican is  far  more  amenable  to  educating  processes  than  is 
the  Haitian  caco.  During  my  two  years'  stay  in  Santo 
Domingo,  the  doors  and  windows  of  my  house  were  always 
open  and  my  personal  effects  often  unguarded  but  the  only 
time  I  ever  was  robbed,  the  thief  was  a  Haitian.  In  fact, 
a  large  part  of  the  so-called  insurgents  or  bandits  in  Santo 
Domingo  are  Haitians. 

I  understand  that  Haitian  government  employees  never 
were  paid  in  cash,  but  in  due  bills.  If,  for  instance,  an  em- 
ployee earned  say  50  gourds  (the  Haitian  monetary  unit), 
he  received  a  chit  or  due  bill  for  that  amount.  A  broker 
would  give  him  5  gourds  for  his  piece  of  paper.  The  broker 
would  then  pass  it  on  to  a  higher  broker  who  would  give 
him  10  gourds;  and  so  on  up  through  a  series  of  grafters 
until  it  finally  reached  the  head  of  the  government  depart- 
ment upon  which  the  bill  was  drawn,  he  would  pay  possibly 
half  its  face  value  and  pass  it  to  the  government  as  a  voucher 
for  full  value. 

Without  dwelling  upon  the  innumerable  revolutions  that 
make  the  history  of  Haiti,  we  may  come  to  the  last  which 
took  place  in  July,  1915. 


238  GEORGE   C.  THORPE 

It  seems  that  the  presidential  palace  was  next  to  the 
French  legation  and  that  there  was  an  easily  accessible 
back  way  between  the  two  which  Haitian  presidents  often 
availed  themselves  of  to  escape  assassination.  President 
Sam  traveled  this  familiar  route  in  that  July  of  1915,  and 
gamed  the  diplomatic  refuge,  but,  quite  contrary  to  Haitian 
precedent,  the  revolutionaries  invaded  theoretical  French 
territory  and  murdered  Mr.  Sam  in  the  presence  of  the 
French  minister's  family,  and  cut  their  victim's  body  into 
pieces  which  they  carried  on  spear  heads  hi  a  grand  parade 
through  the  streets.  The  capital,  Port  au  Prince,  was 
filled  with  federal  troops  as  well  as  by  the  cacos  (insurgents) 
from  north  Haiti.  Hundreds  of  people  were  slaughtered— 
especially  scores  of  political  prisoners. 

Admiral  Caperton,  then  in  command  of  the  American 
naval  forces  hi  West  Indian  waters  came  into  the  harbor  and 
was  asked  to  land  troops  to  protect  foreigners  against  the 
rioting  of  this  blood-thirsty  mob.  He  complied  by  sending 
a  small  force  of  marines  and  sailors  which  accomplished  the 
delicate  operation  of  entering  a  fairly  large  city,  with  which 
they  were  entirely  unfamiliar,  and  into  the  midst  of  frenzied 
masses  that,  though  factional  among  themselves,  were 
united  as  against  the  invader.  The  landing  party  occupied 
important  points,  checked  destruction  and  bloodshed,  and 
possibly  saved  the  city  with  the  loss  of  a  few  sailors  killed. 

The  whole  country  was  hi  a  state  of  chaos  and  bankruptcy 
and  savagery.  A  considerable  force  of  reinforcements  soon 
arrived  under  Col.  (now  major-general)  L.  W.  T.  Waller 
and  set  about  subduing  the  cacos  and  pacifying  the  country. 
After  some  delay  the  American  commanders  prevailed  upon 
the  remnant  of  Haitian  government  to  reorganize  and  select 
a  provisional  president;  a  treaty  was  concluded  with  the 
United  States,  providing  for  the  latter's  supervision  of 
Haitian  finances,  for  the  organization  of  a  constabulary, 
and  for  the  prosecution  of  public  works  and  sanitation  as 
necessary  features  of  progress. 

American  officers  took  charge  of  Haitian  finances  and 
organized  an  efficient  gendarmerie  with  an  authorized 
strength  of  about  2600  officers  and  men  which  was  disposed 


AMERICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         239 

in  various  districts  to  cover  the  republic,  preserving  order, 
promoting  public  works,  and  initiating  extensive  sanita- 
tion improvements.  Possibly  the  best  achievement  of  this 
organization  was  the  completion  of  an  automobile  road 
from  Port  au  Prince  to  Cape  Haitian  on  December  18, 
1917.  They  have  built  some  600  miles  of  road.  A  force 
of  marines  is  maintained  in  Haiti  to  support  the  gendarmerie. 

From  time  to  time  there  have  been  disturbances  on  the 
part  of  the  cacos,  particularly  during  the  present  year.  But 
during  a  period  of  nearly  four  years,  from  December  6, 
1915,  to  November  1,  1919,  there  were  only  eighteen  cas- 
ualties among  American  troops. 

There  was  almost  no  postal  or  telegraph  service  at  the 
beginning  of  the  occupation;  now  those  services  are  general 
and  mail  deliveries  are  regular. 

The  revenues  are  collected  efficiently  and  honestly,  pro- 
vision is  made  therefrom  for  liquidation  of  the  large  public 
debt  as  well  as  for  a  progressive  scheme  of  public  improve- 
ments. A  certain  sum  is  turned  over  to  the  Haitian  gov- 
ernment for  its  other  expenses.  There  is  absolutely  no 
graft  or  extravagance. 

The  present  president  has  held  office  for  some  three  years 
and  recently  toured  the  country,  being  received  enthusiasti- 
cally everywhere;  surely  an  absolute  guaranty  that  the 
Haitian  majority  approves  of  the  present  arrangement  of 
American  occupation,  for  it  was  President  Dartignave  who, 
on  behalf  of  Haiti,  participated  hi  initiating  American 
intervention.  Under  Haitian  government  a  president  would 
have  needed  an  army  to  guard  him  on  such  a  trip. 

As  the  schools  are  under  the  Haitian  government,  they 
are  not,  as  in  Santo  Domingo,  under  the  direction  of  an 
American  minister;  at  the  same  time  the  forces  of  occupation 
have  aided  the  Haitian  government  in  educational  direc- 
tions by  establishing  model  schools  and  by  having  gendar- 
merie officers  report  as  to  school  sessions  as,  without  such 
precautions,  teachers  have  been  known  to  draw  their  sal- 
aries without  attending  school  sessions  for  several  months 
at  a  tune.  Progress  in  education  in  Haiti,  it  is  safe  to  say, 
will  be  infinitely  slower  than  in  Santo  Domingo  if  the  pres- 
ent plans  in  both  places  continue. 


240  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

As  to  sanitation,  Haiti  was  a  terrible  place  scarcely  in- 
habitable where  the  death  rate  at  times  was  appalling. 
Systematic  sanitation  has  been  effected  by  sanitary  engi- 
neers. The  work  of  the  Americans  has  changed  sanitary 
conditions  so  that  Haiti  is  now  most  healthful  and,  with 
Santo  Domingo,  should  be  the  most  popular  winter  resort 
for  tourists  in  the  western  hemisphere. 

VIRGIN  ISLANDS 

The  Virgin  Islands  present  an  entirely  different  problem 
from  that  of  the  Haitian-Dominican  island,  for  in  the  former 
there  has  been  no  resistance  to  American  occupation.  We 
are  there  by  right  of  purchase  and  practically  by  unanimous 
consent  expressed  in  a  plebiscite.  The  vast  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  had  been  eager  for  the  transfer  of  flags  for  a 
long  time. 

In  1901  I  was  mounting  guns  on  Culebra  Island,  and  to 
give  some  of  the  men  a  holiday  after  hard  work,  manned  a 
sailing  launch  and  sailed  over  to  St.  Thomas — about  an 
eighteen  hours'  trip  with  unfavorable  winds.  When  my 
little  30-foot  boat  came  into  St.  Thomas  harbor,  with  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  at  the  peak,  thousands  of  people  crowded 
the  water  front  to  give  us  welcome.  As  the  question  of 
sale  of  the  islands  was  then  acute  in  American-Danish 
diplomacy,  it  seems  the  natives  thought  I  had  brought  a 
message  announcing  the  transfer  as  an  accomplished  fact. 
My  men  were  received  very  hospitably  at  every  turn  and 
even  the  Danish  soldiers  wanted  to  exchange  their  allegiance. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  sole  value  of  the  Virgin  Islands 
to  the  United  States  is  strategic;  otherwise  they  are  a  lia- 
bility instead  of  an  asset.  They  were  not  self-supporting 
under  the  Danes.  Strategically  they  are  well  worth  the 
price  paid  and  the  small  cost  their  maintenance  will  involve, 
and  possibly  they  may  be  turned  to  good  commercial 
account.  At  present  they  produce  yearly  about  a  million 
dollars  worth  of  sugar,  and  little  else. 

The  population  of  about  35,000,  on  the  three  principal 
islands  of  St.  Thomas,  St.  Croix  and  St.  John,  nearly  all 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         241 

blacks,  maintained  itself  largely  through  the  revenues  inci- 
dental to  shipping,  and  that  principally  in  furnishing  the 
labor  for  fueling  ships,  though  there  was  a  considerable 
trade  hi  ships'  supplies,  especially  when  St.  Thomas  was 
a  free  port. 

The  United  States  came  into  possession  of  the  Virgin 
Islands  during  the  World  War,  when  shipping  was  abnormal 
and  while  our  country  was  possibly  too  busy  with  the  great 
efforts  it  was  making  to  win  the  war,  to  be  able  to  give 
intensive  attention  to  these  new  possessions.  Recently  a 
congressional  committee  has  visited  the  islands  and  gathered 
the  fullest  information,  highly  commended  the  military 
government,  and  recommended  its  continuance. 

As  the  islands  are  not  self-supporting  administratively 
and  as  the  natives  themselves  fail  to  make  both  ends  meet, 
the  government  not  only  has  been  without  funds  for  public 
improvements,  but  it  has  been  called  upon  to  provide  sub- 
sistence for  indigents. 

Very  little  ever  had  been  done  for  the  natives  before  the 
American  occupation:  almost  no  educational  facilities, 
although  a  compulsory  education  for  the  very  young  made 
every  child  able  to  read  and  write  which  arts  they  forget 
by  maturity;  little  road  development  except  in  the  island 
of  St.  Croix;  almost  no  public  service  of  sanitation  and 
health;  practically  every  native  deceased;  no  sewage  in  the 
cities  or  elsewhere,;  not  even  a  proper  or  sufficient  water 
supply. 

With  almost  no  funds  available,  the  military  government 
has  utilized  to  the  fullest  its  own  naval  organization  and 
has  given  the  people  an  efficient  and  free  hospital  and  medi- 
cal service  under  naval  medical  officers,  which  has  been  an 
important  service  to  the  people. 

The  government  has  been  able  to  do  little  in  the  matter 
of  education  on  account  of  lack  of  funds.  I  visited  Char- 
lotte Amelia,  the  capital,  in  January,  1919,  and  was  partic- 
ularly impressed  by  the  earnestness  of  the  officers  as  well 
as  of  their  wives.  They  all  were  doing  what  they  could  to 
better  the  conditions  of  the  natives,  and  earlier,  when  I 
was  in  Santo  Domingo,  I  received  the  personal  check  of  one 


242  GEORGE   C.  THORPE 

officer  of  the  Virgin  Islands  government  to  be  expended  for 
a  certain  kind  of  fiber  which  he  was  providing  for  St.  Thomas 
natives  to  start  them  in  hat  making. 

But  good  intentions  without  money  are  not  sufficient. 
However  some  school  buildings  have  been  erected  and  a 
good  start  has  been  made  in  a  school  system,  under  the 
capable  Superintendent  Blah*.  An  Agricultural  Experi- 
mental Station,  under  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  has  extended  its  activities  over  the  three 
principal  islands.  Roads  have  been  built  hi  a  small  way 
and  the  telephone  service  has  been  extended.  A  great  deal 
has  been  done  for  the  poor. 

SUMMARY 

1.  As  to  the  Virgin  Islands,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  our 
government  will  do  whatever  is  necessary  to  afford  the 
people  an  opportunity  to  make  a  living  and  gain  an  educa- 
tion and  that  the  islands  will  be  a  creditable  colony.    The 
natives  as  a  whole  are  proud  of  American  citizenship. 

2.  In  Santo  Domingo,  the  achievements  of  the  military 
government  have  been  highly  creditable.    In  less  than  four 
years  it  has  accomplished  more  progress  than  had  been 
realized  in  ages  of  European  colonization  and  native  gov- 
ernment, for  it  has  in  full  swing  a  system  of  education 
that  will  develop  good  citizens.    A  mental  attribute,  hereto- 
fore unknown  hi  the  island,  i.e.  social  feeling,  is  being  surely 
realized.    By  example  the  Americans  are  showing  the  Do- 
minicans that  public  service  is  not  principally  self  service. 
Critics  who  assume  that  the  Dominican  masses  are  opposed 
to  American  control  are  misinformed.     If  they  have  visited 
the  country  at  all,  they  have  gained  their  information  only 
at  sea  port  cafes  where  they  have  been  indoctrinated  by 
idlers  or  politicians  or  special  interests  that  are  disappointed 
hi  the  military  government  because  it  is  not  favorable  to 
reward  without  labor.     If  the  critic  will  go  into  the  country 
and  talk  with  the  industrious  native  and  small  property 
owners,   or  with  self  respecting  intelligent  persons  any- 
where, he  will  find  an  overwhelming  verdict  in  our  favor. 


AMERICAN  ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         243 

Some  persons  appear  to  assume  that  the  American  occupa- 
tion was  designed  and  is  maintained  principally  in  American 
interests — to  protect  American  settlers.  Nothing  could  be 
more  erroneous,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  very  few 
real  American  settlers,  aside  from  Porto  Ricans,  in  the 
island.  There  are  a  very  few  Americans  on  some  of  the 
sugar  estates  and  a  very  very  few  in  the  cities,  but  one 
never  sees  one  in  the  rural  districts,  outside  of  the  govern- 
ment service.  I  can't  recall  seeing  in  two  years  as  many 
as  a  dozen  American  civilians  resident  in  Santo  Domingo 
outside  of  government  service. 

American  interest  in  Santo  Domingo  is  an  humane  interest 
— a  desire  to  see  peace  and  good  order  and  progress  and  an 
equal  opportunity  available  to  all  classes  of  a  people.  No 
special  favors  accrue  to  Americans  from  the  military 
government. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  work  of  the  American  occu- 
pation has  not  yet  created  a  perfect  social  order,  as  the 
thoughtless  and  misinformed  critic  would  seem  to  demand, 
in  less  than  four  years'  trial.  Every  such  problem  is  a  new 
one.  It  is  not  the  same  in  Santo  Domingo  as  in  Haiti,  and 
it  is  far  different  from  that  of  the  Philippines  where  American 
control  has  been  the  finest  achievement  of  its  kind  in  the 
history  of  colonization.  You  have  sent  remarkably  fine 
governors  to  Santo  Domingo  and  the  Virgin  Islands,  wise 
men  of  culture,  gentle  and  considerate,  and  as  fine  men  to 
Haiti.  Nothing  could  be  finer  than  their  devotion  to  their 
temporarily  adopted  country.  Speaking  only  of  those  I 
know  personally  (and  of  whose  administrations  I  have  per- 
sonal knowledge)  I  am  sure  there  are  no  finer  men  than  Rear 
Admiral  Oliver,  the  first  governor  of  the  United  States  Virgin 
Islands;  Rear  Admiral  Knapp,  the  first  military  governor 
of  Santo  Domingo;  Brigadier-Generals  Pendleton  and  Fuller, 
acting  governors  and  commanding  land  forces  in  Santo 
Domingo;  and  Colonel  Russell  in  Haiti.  The  American 
people  need  have  no  concern  hi  giving  such  men  an  oppor- 
tunity to  work  out  their  tasks  without  nagging  them. 

There  is,  however,  one  criticism  of  military  government 
hi  Santo  Domingo  and  Haiti  that  I  have  heard  advanced 


244  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

by  friendly  natives.  They  ask  why  it  is  necessary  to  con- 
tinue military  courts  for  the  trial  of  civilians  who  commit 
offenses  against  the  military  forces  or  in  violation  of  a  few 
decrees  of  the  military  governor.  The  last  time  I  heard  this 
complaint  was  from  a  Haitian.  He  cited  an  example  of  the 
hardship  in  saying  that  a  Haitian  had  been  fined  heavily 
($50)  for  selling  liquor  illegally  to  a  soldier.  He  said  that 
as  the  offense  was  only  a  trifling  misdemeanor,  the  fine  was 
far  too  heavy. 

That  example  is  one  illustration  of  the  necessity  of  the 
continuance  of  the  military  court  with  its  present  very 
limited  jurisdiction;  the  great  chasm  of  difference  hi  stand- 
ards of  right  and  wrong,  as  viewed  by  these  natives  and  our- 
selves, necessitates  the  retention  of  military  courts  for  the 
protection  of  the  means  of  accomplishing  our  mission.  Mur- 
der is  a  very  ordinary  crime  in  that  island,  and  without  any 
extenuating  circumstances  a  native  court  will  award  a  pun- 
ishment of  one  year's  imprisonment  therefor.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  forces  of  occupation,  firearms  in  the 
hands  of  Dominicans  very  generally  have  made  sources  of 
much  of  then*  trouble;  but  Dominicans,  having  been  brought 
up  with  firearms  from  infancy,  find  it  difficult  to  see  the 
seriousness  of  a  violation  of  the  military  government's  or- 
der against  firearms.  The  effectiveness  of  the  prohibition 
would  be  nil  without  the  aid  of  military  courts. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  military  (or  provost) 
courts  have  very  limited  jurisdiction;  that  their  findings 
and  sentences  are  reviewed  by  the  highest  authorities;  and 
that  they  have  no  opportunity  to  be  oppressive.  They 
never  deny  the  right  of  accused  to  be  represented  by  coun- 
sel, as  has  been  stated  by  a  speaker  here  today;  to  the  con- 
trary they  urge  such  representation.  If  there  are  those 
who  would  prefer  to  be  tried  by  civil  courts,  many  people 
appeared  at  my  headquarters  to  appeal  for  military  juris- 
diction for  then-  cases.  Everywhere  one  finds  persons  who 
think  their  chances  of  escaping  justice  might  be  better  in 
some  other  jurisdiction  than  that  prescribed  by  law.  Our 
military  courts  are  bound  by  the  same  rules  of  evidence 
that  are  applied  in  United  States  courts  and  convictions  are 


AMERICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         245 

had  only  on  due  process.  That  military  process  is  not 
unduly  severe  is  attested  by  the  fact  that  although  many 
bandits  have  been  convicted  of  numerous  murders,  no  na- 
tive has  paid  the  price  of  capital  punishment  under  the  mili- 
tary government  of  Haiti,  Santo  Domingo  or  Virgin  Islands. 

As  to  the  censorship,  for  which  the  military  government  is 
criticized,  it  was  not  imposed  at  the  beginning  of  the  occu- 
pation, as  has  been  stated  here  today.  It  was  not  applied 
for  a  long  time  during  which  the  freedom  of  the  press  was 
grossly  abused  by  the  publication  of  wholly  false  and  abu- 
sive material  intended  to  impede  the  restoration  of  order 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  Furthermore,  the  censorship 
was  an  incident  of  the  World  War.  Santo  Domingo  was 
a  haven  for  many  Germans  who,  with  the  idea  of  aiding 
their  own  country,  tried  to  embarrass  the  military  govern- 
ment by  aiding  banditry.  Obviously  a  censorship  was  nec- 
essary to  curtail  all  such  efforts  as  well  as  to  obstruct  the 
importation  of  arms  and  ammunition. 

3.  The  problem  in  Haiti  is  the  most  discouraging  of  all 
for  it  is  the  most  difficult.  It  will  take  a  much  longer  time 
in  the  solution,  for  the  Haitians  are  so  much  farther  removed 
from  social  competence.  The  inhabitants  being  as  yet  un- 
able to  appreciate  mental  and  moral  control  must,  obvi- 
ously, be  governed  through  the  exercise  or  show  of  force 
until  education  in  a  generation  or  two  has  established  a 
supremacy  of  reason.  Our  guidance  and  protection  to  ma- 
terial development  in  the  country  and  protection  to  the 
Haitian  government  is  the  only  means  through  which  the 
objective  can  be  obtained.  The  savage  cacos  will  be  dis- 
orderly for  sometime  to  come,  no  doubt,  but  they  will  not 
seriously  affect  the  march  of  progress  desired  by  the  good 
Haitians  who  will  lead  Haitian  thought.  The  American 
Marines  hi  Haiti  have  accomplished  more  good  in  four 
years  than  was  brought  about  in  all  previous  centuries  of 
Haitian  history.  Give  them  a  chance  for  a  few  years  more 
and  see  what  the  Haitians  themselves,  under  American 
guidance,  will  make  of  themselves. 

If  there  is  any  criticism  due  our  administration  in  the 
West  Indies,  according  to  my  own  views,  it  is  that  there  is 


246  GEORGE   C.   THORPE 

no  announced  policy  and  no  definition  of  mission  that  is 
generally  understood.  Uncertainty  is  painful.  But  if  the 
American  government  could  announce  and  widely  and 
frankly  publish,  its  intentions  in  well  defined  terms,  saying 
that  it  proposes  to  remain  hi  occupation  until  a  certain 
state  of  affairs  is  created  and  at  least  until  a  certain  date 
stated,  it  would  be  so  much  better  for  all  persons  concerned, 
even  for  ourselves  who  could  then  allot  our  tasks  hi  refer- 
ence to  tune.  It  would  give  the  native  politicians  an  assur- 
ance through  which  they  would  reconcile  themselves  to  other 
employment  than  political  intrigue,  and  it  would  give  the 
masses  who  are  pro-Americans  a  new  confidence  upon  which 
they  could  securely  rest  a  scheme  of  life  and  employment. 
Uncertainty  is  particularly  a  hardship  for  people  of  tropical 
temperament  who  naturally  are  procrastinators;  they  delay 
action  until  they  may  know  what  the  de  facto  government 
is  going  to  do. 

Definition  of  a  mission,  placed  hi  the  hands  of  American 
officials  hi  the  West  Indies,  would  be  helpful  because  it 
would  afford  a  basis  for  indoctrinating  all  agencies  of  the 
government. 

As  to  the  propriety  of  American  occupation — there  is 
the  same  necessity  to  protect  a  whole  population  of  helpless 
people  against  a  few  exploiters  and  criminals  that  there 
would  be  for  you  to  stop  a  murder  if  you  saw  it  about  to  be 
committed  in  your  neighbor's  back  yard,  or  to  step  between 
a  villain  and  a  helpless  little  girl  about  to  be  ravished.  And 
it  is  just  as  pusillanimous  for  a  government  to  hesitate  hi 
such  a  duty  as  it  is  for  an  individual.  It  would  be  just  as 
gallant  for  the  United  States  to  leave  the  Dominicans  and 
Haitians  to  the  fate  that  would  await  them  if  the  old  order 
were  restored,  as  it  would  be  for  you  to  stand  by  as  an  indiffer- 
ent witness  to  the  worst  of  crimes.  Regardless  of  whether 
there  is  any  political  theory  that  will  cover  such  a  case  of 
loss  of  self  government  by  a  people  unfit  to  govern,  I  am 
sure  that  no  generous  American  could  visit  Santo  Domingo 
and  Haiti  and,  learning  the  true  conditions,  wish  an  end  to 
the  occupation. 


AMEEICAN   ACHIEVEMENTS   IN   SANTO   DOMINGO         247 

I  hope  I  may  be  pardoned  a  word  as  to  the  effect  of  public 
criticism  of  our  government's  efforts  in  the  West  Indies. 
There  is  no  denying  the  value  of  criticism  if  based  upon  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  facts  and  conditions.  However  pain- 
ful it  may  be  to  the  criticized  agent  it  may  being  to  him  the 
benefits  of  wide  scientific  knowledge  and  sound  judgments 
suggesting  shorter  routes  to  the  end  in  view.  But  criticism 
not  founded  on  accurate  knowledge  of  the  case  is  only  harm- 
ful; it  suggests  no  remedies  to  those  in  authority  and  only 
serves  to  encourage  the  government's  unworthy  enemies. 
The  thoughtless  critic  thus  allies  himself  with  Dominican 
bandits  and  Haitian  cacos  or  with  a  few  misguided  politi- 
cians who,  failing  to  estimate  the  weight  of  the  critic,  see 
in  it  new  encouragement  to  intrigue.  The  politico  sends  a 
copy  of  the  American  critic's  speech  to  his  friend,  the  bandit 
chief,  who,  on  the  strength  of  this  American  encouragement, 
kills  a  few  more  loyal  natives  and  maybe  an  American  ma- 
rine, and  rapes  a  town  or  two.  If  anyone  really  has  knowl- 
edge of  any  abuse  of  authority  in  Haiti  or  Santo  Domingo, 
it  is  his  duty  to  report  the  facts  to  our  government  in  Wash- 
ington; justice  would  follow  speedily.  So  also  it  anyone 
can  give  valuable  suggestions  for  the  improvement  of  our 
governments  hi  the  West  Indies  they  would  be  most  gladly 
received,  I  believe,  by  the  government's  agents  either  in 
the  Navy  Department  at  Washington  or  in  the  military 
governments. 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  THE    CARIBBEAN 

By  Samuel  Guy  Inman,  Executive  Secretary  of  the  Committee 
on  Cooperation  in  Latin  America 

It  may  be  that  I  am  the  only  one  present  at  the  Confer- 
ence who  has  visited  during  the  last  year  all  of  the  countries 
of  the  Caribbean  where  the  United  States  maintains  a  force 
of  soldiers.  I  will  therefore  speak  informally  of  political 
conditions  as  I  found  them  in  some  of  the  most  interesting 
of  those  countries,  rather  than  trace  the  historical  facts, 
already  amply  described,  which  led  up  to  the  present  influ- 
ence of  the  United  States  Government  in  the  life  of  these 
countries. 

The  outstanding  impressions  of  a  trip  through  the  coun- 
tries of  the  American  Mediterranean  are,  first,  the  marked 
backwardness  of  most  of  them  in  matters  of  educational 
and  moral  progress,  and,  second,  the  overwhelming  influence 
of  the  United  States  in  their  economic  and  political  life. 
It  makes  no  difference  how  much  one  may  have  read  about 
the  situation,  it  is  impossible  to  realize  until  he  has  made 
a  visit  to  them  one  after  another  just  how  true  it  is  that 
the  United  States  holds  these  countries  absolutely  in  the 
hollow  of  her  hand. 

Ordinarily  when  one  is  to  have  an  audience  with  a  Latin 
American  president  he  practices  up  his  best  Spanish  phrases 
and  etiquette.  But  I  recently  found  in  Santo  Domingo 
that  this  was  all  unnecessary.  The  president  of  the  Domin- 
ican Republic  when  I  was  presented  spoke  to  me  in  charm- 
ing English.  For  he  was  none  other  than  a  rear-admiral 
of  the  United  States  navy.  On  being  presented  to  the 
minister  of  foreign  affairs,  I  found  that  he  was  an  officer  in 
the  United  States  Marine  Corps,  as  was  the  minister  of 
war,  minister  of  public  works  and  the  rest  of  the  cabinet 
in  this  Republic.  There  is  a  certain  advantage  in  this  for 
the  American  visitor,  commercial  man  and  even  for  the 

248 


PRESENT  SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  249 

American  minister,  who,  curiously  enough,  is  still  accredited 
and  maintained  before  the  government  of  the  Dominican 
Republic.  Here  at  least  is  one  Latin  American  government 
which  appreciates  the  English  language  and  the  North 
American  view-point  enough  to  adopt  them,  which  seems 
to  be  what  the  average  American  thinks  the  whole  world 
should  do. 

One  is  deeply  impressed  with  the  fine  spirit  in  which  the 
admiral  and  his  cabinet  are  carrying  on  their  work,  which 
they  seem  to  regard  as  a  real  missionary  job.  The  admiral 
said  that  when  he  first  received  the  request  from  Admiral 
Benson  in  Paris  to  go  to  Santo  Domingo,  he  said  abruptly, 
"I  won't  go."  Benson's  cable  back  to  the  department  was, 
"  Disappointed  in  Snowden."  The  department  again  put 
it  up  to  Snowden,  telling  him  he  was  holding  up  the  whole 
navy  program.  So  he  decided  to  go.  Now  that  he  is  down 
there  he  has  become  so  interested  in  helping  these  people 
that  he  would  like  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  official  life  work- 
ing out  the  problems  now  before  him.  This  represents  the 
spirit  of  many  of  our  men,  in  spite  of  the  criticism  one  often 
hears  on  the  military  authorities. 

The  chief  trouble  with  Santo  Domingo  is  the  utter  ab- 
sence of  all  the  facilities  and  forces  that  we  associate  with 
modern  civilization.  The  capital  has  no  street  cars,  no 
sewers,  water  or  telephone  systems,  only  a  few  private 
electric  light  plants  and  no  building  ever  erected  entirely 
for  school  purposes.  Illiteracy  on  the  Island  is  calculated 
at  90  to  95  per  cent  of  persons  over  ten  years  of  age.  Many 
country  people  have  no  sense  of  numbers  above  five. 
There  are  practically  no  roads,  and  the  northern  and  south- 
ern parts  of  the  island  are  like  two  different  countries. 
Venereal  diseases,  hookworm,  malaria  and  tuberculosis  run 
riot  without  anyone  knowing  how  to  treat  them. 

The  primary  object  of  my  visit  was  to  survey  the  country 
and  suggest  a  united  program  of  service  which  could  be 
undertaken  to  help  in  the  Island's  development.  Prac- 
tically every  person  I  asked  as  to  what  the  people  were  in 
particular  need  of  replied,  "Everything."  If  I  suggested 
this  or  that  or  the  other  institution  or  activity,  the  reply 


250  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

was,  "Yes,  anything  you  can  do  for  these  people  will  be 
worth  while.  Don't  be  afraid  of  duplicating  or  doing  too 
much.  That  would  be  impossible." 

After  a  week  hi  the  capital,  I  drew  up  a  tentative  program 
and  invited  ten  gentlemen  to  meet  me  at  luncheon  to  dis- 
cuss it.  There  were  present  the  admiral  and  his  staff, 
the  president  and  his  cabinet,  as  you  choose  to  call  them, 
the  chaplain  of  the  marines,  the  archdeacon  of  the  Episcopal 
church  and  others.  Admiral  Snowden  expressed  himself 
later  hi  a  letter  as  follows: 

I  beg  to  thank  you  for  your  hospitality  of  yesterday  at  the 
Enlisted  Men's  Club,  which  was  a  most  enjoyable  meeting.  I 
was  very  much  interested  in  the  program  you  presented  and 
which  we  discussed,  and  most  cordially  endorse  the  program  and 
hope  that  we  can  arrange  cooperation  so  that  the  many  beneficial 
institutions  there  outlined  can  be  materialized  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Dominican  people.  These  people  are  in  the  greatest  need 
of  the  institutions  therein  specified.  They  are  to  a  great  extent 
a  backward  people  who  need  an  object  lesson  in  modern  ideas 
and  ideals.  They  would  be  willing  to  help  themselves  later  on, 
at  which  time  they  can  be  taught  the  value  of  these  moral  and 
industrial  activities. 

Here  is  the  difficulty  with  the  present  situation.  A  mili- 
tary government  is  not  designed  to  educate  a  people  and 
develop  them  in  self-expression  and  government.  In  the 
first  place,  there  is  too  much  government.  Martial  law 
always  means  regulation  of  every  detail  of  life.  People 
cannot  meet  hi  public  gatherings  to  discuss  their  problems. 
The  newspapers  cannot  discuss  political  questions,  and 
criticisms  are  not  to  be  thought  of.  Individuals  talk  mostly 
in  whispers  if  they  answer  adversely  your  inquiries  as  to- 
how  they  like  the  present  order. 

In  the  second  place,  a  foreign  military  government  con- 
ducted largely  by  officials  who  cannot  speak  the  language 
of  the  people  and  who  have  no  idea  of  then-  history  or 
national  psychology  must  necessarily  be  an  unjust  govern- 
ment. Some  of  the  American  officials  do  their  work  in  as 
fine  a  spirit  as  any  missionary  who  went  to  serve  in  a  foreign 
mission  station.  But  this  does  not  keep  them  from  making 
great  mistakes  when  they  arbitrarily  determine  great  prob- 


PRESENT  SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  251 

lems  of  taxation,  education  and  economic  and  social  life. 
The  United  States  navy  has  not  had  sufficient  experience 
in  colonization  to  have  built  up  a  body  of  experts  in  such 
matters.  Officers  are  changed  too  often  to  build  up  a 
body  of  experience  and  enlisted  men  are  too  anxious  to  get 
home  to  take  any  interest  hi  the  people. 

Two  illustrations  occur  to  me.  With  perfectly  good  in- 
tentions the  government  was  planning  a  landtax  and  was 
about  to  require  the  properties  to  be  registered.  But  if  it 
works  out  as  it  did  a  few  years  ago  in  Mexico  it  will  mean 
that  the  ignorant  natives,  who  have  enjoyed  the  use  of  lands 
without  question  from  generation  to  generation,  will  find 
that  then*  properties  are  registered  in  the  name  of  slick 
politicians  who  will  thus  build  up  great  landed  estates  by 
robbing  the  common  people. 

In  the  matter  of  education  a  wonderful  showing  has  been 
made  in  the  primary  schools,  which  have  grown  from  an 
enrollment  of  some  30,000  three  years  ago  up  to  90,000  at 
present,  due  to  the  herculean  efforts  of  Colonel  Lane,  the 
Minister  of  Education.  But  Colonel  Lane  has  now  left. 
His  efforts  were  centered  on  combating  illiteracy.  There 
are  no  permanent  foundations  laid  for  building  up  either 
of  two  indispensable  educational  forces,  an  adequate  teach- 
ing staff  or  universal  training  of  children  along  industrial 
lines.  Higher  education  is  almost  wholly  lacking  and  the 
provision  of  former  governments  to  send  a  number  of  stu- 
dents to  foreign  countries  has  been  discontinued  by  the 
military  government  because  of  these  students  interesting 
themselves  hi  political  problems. 

In  the  third  place  the  governors  and  the  governed  live 
entirely  apart  from  one  another  and  there  is  practically  no 
means  of  intercourse.  While  a  few  Dominicans  have  been 
employed  to  assist  the  Americans,  they  have  thus  largely 
cut  themselves  off  from  their  own  people.  The  Americans 
generally  remain  to  themselves  and  the  Dominicans  do 
likewise,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  the  simple  one  that 
99  per  cent  of  each  party  is  unfamiliar  with  the  language  of 
the  other. 


252  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

This  was  brought  home  to  me  by  a  visit  to  Senor  Federico 
Garcia  Godoy,  one  of  the  most  noted  literary  men  in  Latin 
America.  American  army  men  in  La  Vega,  his  home,  did 
not  even  know  there  was  such  a  man.  When  he  found 
out  that  I  was  not,  as  he  supposed,  a  commercial  traveler, 
and  that  I  had  read  his  books  and  knew  some  of  his  friends 
in  the  literary  world  of  Lathi  America,  he  was  overjoyed. 
To  meet  an  American  who  could  talk  of  history,  literature, 
international  politics  and  other  things  belonging  to  his  world 
seemed  to  give  him  the  surprise  of  his  life.  So  I  was  all 
the  time  meeting  choice  spirits  among  the  Dominicans  and 
the  Americans,  but  who  knew  nothing  of  one  another.  The 
situation  which  shuts  out  entirely  from  the  moulding  of 
national  life  some  of  these  splendid  Dominicans  that  are 
well  known  for  their  ability  in  other  parts  of  the  world, 
is  an  impossible  situation. 

The  Dominicans  recognize  that  they  have  made  a  mess 
of  governing  themselves  during  the  hundred  years  they 
tried  it.  They  are  not  unmindful  of  the  benefits  that  have 
come  from  peace  and  increased  prosperity  enjoyed  under 
American  rule.  Few  ever  expect  to  be  entirely  out  from 
under  American  influence.  Strange  to  say,  I  found  most  of 
them  preferring  their  present  situation  to  that  of  Haiti, 
they  reasoning  as  follows:  The  present  military  government 
is  essentially  temporary,  though  it  may  last  many  years.  Pub- 
lic opinion  of  the  world  will  not  allow  it  to  continue  indef- 
initely so  long  as  we  refuse  to  accept  it.  If  we  should  sign 
a  treaty  like  that  signed  by  Haiti,  then  we  ourselves  would 
be  to  blame  for  our  loss  of  sovereignty.  Give  us  a  treaty 
along  the  lines  of  the  arrangement  with  Cuba.  Then  you 
can  protect  your  commercial  interests  and  help  us  restore 
order  if  we  return  to  political  turmoil.  But  if  we  are  good, 
then  we  can  direct  our  own  affairs. 

If  there  were  tune,  it  would  be  interesting  to  point  out 
some  of  the  splendid  things  that  the  American  authorities 
have  done  in  the  way  of  building  roads  and  port  works, 
improving  sanitary  conditions,  paying  foreign  bond  holders, 
providing  stable  conditions  for  business,  etc.  Frankness 
would  compel  me  to  say,  however,  that  even  in  these  mate- 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  253 

rial  matters  I  was  disappointed  in  the  results,  especially  in 
the  two  important  matters  of  providing  overland  communi- 
cation between  the  northern  and  southern  halves  of  the 
island  and  the  suppression  of  the  terrible  disorder  in  the 
interior  of  the  country  which  still  renders  it  unsafe  for 
travelers.  There  seems  to  be  no  letting  up  whatever  in 
the  banditry,  and  an  American  probably  runs  greater  risks 
in  traveling  through  certain  districts  than  at  any  other  tune 
in  the  history  of  the  country. 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  with  the  present  situation, 
however,  is  that  the  people  are  not  being  prepared  for 
government.  The  Dominicans  have  no  responsibility  placed 
on  them.  They  have  no  incentive  toward  progress  except 
material  prosperity.  More  of  their  children  may  be  taught 
to  read  and  write,  more  may  secure  advanced  wages  from 
foreign  corporations  and  more  may  enjoy  automobile  rides 
on  good  roads,  but  the  present  military  government  by  its 
very  nature  cannot  give  itself  to  the  development  of  the 
nobler  things  of  life.  For  this  reason  and  for  the  other 
that,  whatever  exigencies  of  war  may  have  compelled  us 
to  take  over  Santo  Domingo,  the  American  people  cannot 
permanently  consent  to  robbing  a  people  of  their  sover- 
eignty. The  present  situation  is  an  impossible  one.  I  feel 
sure  that  no  one  more  fully  recognizes  this  than  the  respon- 
sible American  officials  concerned  and  that  they  will  soon 
bring  about  the 'needed  change. 

The  situation  in  Haiti  is  very  similar  in  many  ways  to 
that  of  Santo  Domingo.  But  our  authority  in  Haiti  is 
secured  by  treaty.  In  each  country  the  military  force  is 
the  dominating  one. 

The  first  thing  for  a  visitor  to  do,  either  in  Santo  Domingo 
or  Haiti  is  to  report  to  the  local  American  officer  in  com- 
mand. The  arrangements  between  our  military  forces  in 
the  two  countries  is  different,  however,  at  least  in  theory. 
In  Santo  Domingo  there  is  no  pretense  of  federal  govern- 
ment except  by  the  American  military  forces.  In  Haiti 
there  is  a  president,  cabinet  and  sometimes  a  congress,  with 
governors  and  local  officials,  which  function  in  certain  mat- 
ters as  long  as  they  are  willing  to  cooperate  with  the  Ameri- 
can military  authorities. 


254  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

There  is,  then,  a  dual  government  in  Haiti,  one  the  native 
government  and  the  other  the  American  Marines,  headed 
by  the  general  in  command.  If  the  native  gendarmerie  is 
counted,  and  it  has  large  authority,  there  may  be  said  to  be 
three  governments. 

The  man  of  most  power  is  the  Financial  Adviser,  an 
American,  who  has  final  authority  over  the  various  items 
of  expenditure  by  the  national  treasury.  In  matters  like 
sanitation,  the  United  States  government  details  an  officer 
from  the  navy  or  the  marine  corps  to  serve  under  the  Hai- 
tian government.  The  gendarmerie,  like  the  Guardia  Na- 
tional of  Santo  Domingo,  is  composed  of  native  soldiers 
officered  by  American  marines,  privates  or  non-commis- 
sioned officers,  who  have  been  detailed  by  the  marine  corps 
for  this  work  after  they  have  stood  examination  in  ele- 
mentary French  and  in  Haitian  law.  Marines  are  only 
stationed  permanently  hi  the  larger  towns,  but  the  gen- 
darmes are  found  scattered  all  over  the  country  as  well  as 
in  all  the  cities.  Where  both  forces  are  found  their  barracks 
are  in  different  parts  of  the  town.  As  the  officers  of  the 
gendarmes  are  only  enlisted  men  in  the  Marine  Corps  and 
the  private  gendarmes  are  Haitians,  there  is  naturally  little 
relation  between  the  personnel  of  the  two  organizations. 

The  marine  who  becomes  an  officer  in  the  gendarmerie 
finds  himself  clothed  with  almost  unlimited  power  in  the 
district  where  he  serves.  He  is  the  judge  of  practically  all 
civil  and  criminal  cases,  settling  everything  from  a  family 
fight  to  a  murder.  He  is  the  paymaster  of  all  funds  ex- 
pended by  the  national  government,  he  is  ex-officio  director 
of  the  schools,  inasmuch  as  he  pays  the  teachers.  He  con- 
trols the  mayor  and  city  council,  since  they  can  spend  no 
funds  without  his  O.K.  As  collector  of  taxes  he  exercises 
a  strong  influence  on  all  individuals  of  the  community.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  an  ordinary  private  in  the  marine  corps, 
with  a  few  months  residence  in  a  foreign  country,  where 
people  are  at  a  very  low  stage  of  civilization,  and  he  him- 
self with  little  or  no  preparation  for  such  varied  responsi- 
bilities as  are  thrust  upon  him,  is  often  accused  of  many 
abuses  and  mistakes.  When  one  sees  the  awful  conditions 


PEESENT   SITUATION   IN  THE   CARIBBEAN  255 

under  which  these  gendarme  officers  are  called  to  live,  he 
wonders  if  he  himself  would  do  any  better  under  the  same 
circumstances.  But  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  impossible 
to  get  anywhere  in  reforming  a  people  who  see  nothing  to 
admire  in  the  reformer,  who  too  seldom  tempers  justice 
with  mercy  but  often  inflicts  a  punishment  more  severe 
than  the  crime. 

The  fight  being  waged  by  the  force  of  marines  and  the 
gendarmerie  for  the  extermination  of  the  cacos,  or  bandits, 
is  growing  more  serious  constantly.  While  we  were  not 
molested  on  the  main  road,  it  was  evident  everywhere  that 
we  were  in  a  country  where  there  was  real  war.  Most  of 
the  big  posts  were  stripped  of  men  except  barely  enough  to 
do  necessary  guard  duty,  the  rest  of  them  being  out  in  the 
hills  after  the  bandits.  These  outlaws  go  about  in  bands 
numbering  from  twenty-five  to  two  hundred.  Not  more 
than  20  or  30  per  cent  are  armed  and  these  are  very  poor 
shots,  so  that  there  are  few  casualties  among  our  men.  They 
are  now  making  a  systematic  drive  and  closing  in  on  the 
bandits  and  in  some  battles  from  twenty-five  to  sixty  are 
killed.  It  is  the  hardest  sort  of  military  work. 

The  bandits  may  be  sighted  on  top  of  a  hill,  and  by  the 
time  our  men  hike  to  the  spot  their  quarry  will  have  crossed 
over  to  the  next  hill-top  and  will  holloa  across  making  fun 
of  the  slow  Americanos.  There  is  nothing  to  be  done  but 
to  keep  on  chasing  them  until  through  strategy  or  forced 
marches  they  are  within  gun  shot.  The  range  needs  to 
be  close,  as  the  cacos  are  little  affected  by  a  wound  that  will 
put  an  ordinary  man  out  of  business.  I  saw  one  man  who 
had  been  accidentally  shot  and  brought  into  the  fort  where 
a  gendarme  was  probing  for  the  bullet  with  what  looked 
to  me  like  a  needle  used  to  sew  up  potato  sacks.  The  blood 
was  flowing  profusely  as  the  probe  went  here  and  there, 
but  the  man  lay  as  still  as  though  absolutely  nothing  was 
going  on.  After  seeing  that  I  was  more  ready  to  believe 
the  stories  of  how  they  kept  coming  after  they  had  been 
shot  in  a  way  that  would  be  fatal  immediately  to  most  men. 

One's  heart  goes  out  toward  our  boys  who  are  engaged  in 
this  terrible  business.  Often  their  forced  marches  without 


256  SAMUEL   GUY  INMAN 

food  last  for  many  long  hours  and  even  days.  Months  are 
spent  in  the  wild  country  without  seeing. any  civilized  life 
whatever,  without  any  amusements,  without  even  a  news- 
paper or  magazine.  Even  in  the  smaller  towns  on  the  main 
road  of  travel  we  found  posts  where  the  men  had  not  seen 
a  newspaper  for  four  months,  and  had  no  means  of  recre- 
ation whatever.  The  few  chaplains  are  working  hard  on 
this  matter,  and  one  has  just  succeeded  in  getting  a  motion 
picture  machine  sent  way  up  into  the  hills  in  the  ulterior 
where  the  fighting  is  worst  and  where  living  conditions  are 
almost  unbearable.  For  we  must  remember  that  interior 
Haiti  is  like  mterior  Africa,  where  natives  live  the  most 
degraded  lives. 

The  men  out  on  the  field  agree  that  the  situation  is  get- 
ting worse  rather  than  better.  They  only  see  an  end  to  it 
when  all  the  cacos  shall  have  been  exterminated.  But 
when  will  this  be  accomplished?  In  the  killing  of  the  pres- 
ent crop  others  are  grown.  While  Haiti  has  always  had  its 
professional  revolutionists  and  country  bands  who  lived  by 
robbery,  there  seems  to  be  a  general  agreement  that  the 
present  acute  trouble  was  developed  by  the  American  officers 
of  the  gendarmerie  enforcing  too  rigidly  an  old  law  requiring 
men  to  work  the  roads  four  days  a  month.  This  has  now 
been  abandoned,  and  all  road  workers  are  paid  a  gourde 
(twenty  cents  gold)  per  day  for  their  work.  But  the  oppo- 
sition to  government  has  been  augmented  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  American  authorities  see  no  way  of  settling  it 
except  by  the  sword.  In  the  short  time  I  was  in  the  coun- 
try I  was  not  able  to  form  a  proper  judgment  as  to  whether 
there  was  any  particular  political  purpose  behind  this  oppo- 
sition to  the  Americans  on  the  part  of  the  cacos,  or  whether 
they  were  simply  a  lot  of  bandits  who  preferred  to  live  by 
pillage  rather  than  by  work.  One  hears,  of  course,  both 
opinions  expressed. 

It  is  with  great  hesitancy  that  one  even  seemingly  passes 
criticism  upon  our  American  marines.  No  man  knows  but 
that  he  might  act  in  the  same  way  under  similar  conditions. 
It  is  the  machine,  not  the  man,  that  is  to  blame.  From  the 
military  standpoint,  it  is  natural  to  regard  all  Me  as  cheap; 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN  THE   CARIBBEAN  257 

especially  when  stationed  in  a  country  where  people  are 
little  above  the  animal,  where  you  are  hated  and  your  life 
is  sought,  if  not  by  all,  at  least  by  organized  bands  who 
compel  you  to  sleep  with  your  hands  on  your  arms,  and 
where,  if  ever  caught,  you  know  you  will  be  subject  to  un- 
mentionable torture  before  you  meet  a  horrible  death. 
Under  such  conditions  it  is  easy  to  live  up  to  the  rule  of 
"take  no  prisoners"  and  to  have  small  respect  for  the  rights 
and  property  of  those  who  have  no  respect  for  you  and  little 
for  themselves. 

Military  life,  moreover,  does  not  lend  itself  to  civil  re- 
forms, for  it  is  based  on  caste.  Discipline  is  only  main- 
tained by  obeying  without  question  your  superior.  The 
private  is  subject  to  the  ire  of  the  sergeant,  the  sergeant  to 
the  lieutenant,  the  lieutenant  to  the  captain,  and  so  on. 
And  very  likely  the  ire  of  all  is  visited  on  the  civilian.  As 
a  young  editor,  who  had  to  take  his  paper  to  the  military 
authorities  for  their  censorship  before  it  was  published, 
said,  "We  want  a  civil  government  so  we  can  approach 
them.  You  go  to  see  one  of  the  military  authorities.  You 
know  he  is  a  very  fine  man.  But  he  has  a  guard  at  the 
door  who  unceremoniously  tells  you  to  'get  out,  and  do  it 
quick!"  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  bandit  situation 
doesn't  get  better  under  such  treatment  or  that  the  Ameri- 
can soldier  acts  as  he  does  under  the  conditions  described, 
when  he  has  never  had  any  training  for  administrative  or 
democratizing  work?  My  duties  have  carried  me  into 
many  of  the  out  of  the  way  places  of  the  world,  where  moral 
restraint  was  largely  removed.  But  in  no  place  have  I 
ever  seen  American  men  descend  so  low  in  orgies  with  na- 
tive rum  and  native  women  as  in  ulterior  Haiti.  But  they 
were  not  typical  of  our  soldiers,  many  of  whom  are  putting 
up  a  heroic  fight  for  character  against  awful  odds. 

The  same  thing  applies  to  moral  life.  Who  will  throw 
the  first  stone  at  the  man  who  is  compelled  to  live  away  from 
all  that  is  pure  and  ennobling,  without  religious  or  moral 
influences  of  any  kind,  without  books  or  recreation  often, 
without  even  a  baseball  or  a  victrola,  in  the  midst  of  the 
vilest  native  life  where  men  have  little  virtue  and  women 


258  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

small  sense  of  shame?  The  whole  thing  is  absolutely  un- 
natural. If  necessary  for  a  few  months  under  extraordinary 
conditions,  it  should  certainly  not  be  allowed  to  exist  through 
the  years  that  men  do  not  get  into  a  pure  atmosphere  or 
see  good  women  of  their  own  race  or  hear  a  moral  exhorta- 
tion for  two  or  three  years,  as  happens  with  some  of  our 
men  here.  Such  men  too  often  have  their  whole  moral 
makeup  changed. 

The  best  of  the  officers  in  Haiti  realize  that  the  situation 
is  not  satisfactory  and  are  doing  what  they  can  to  correct 
it.  "So  far  we  have  done  little  for  Haiti  except  stop  the 
graft — and  that  has  not  made  the  people  like  us!  It  is 
tune  we  were  doing  some  constructive  service  for  these 
people."  Thus  spoke  the  commander  of  the  American  ma- 
rines in  Haiti.  Of  course  he  did  not  mean  that  literally  be- 
cause already  much  has  been  accomplished  in  the  building 
of  roads,  sanitation  of  cities,  improvement  of  the  postal 
service  and  other  public  activities.  The  national  debt, 
which  constantly  threatened  the  independent  life  of  the 
nation,  is  being  gradually  liquidated. 

If  our  government  is  to  go  forward  satisfactorily  with  the 
tremendous  job  it  has  begun  there  must  be  hi  every  case 
the  most  careful  selection  of  the  men  who  are  sent  to  deal 
with  these  people.  When  we  began  our  work  in  the  Phil- 
ippines we  sent  a  man  like  Mr.  Taft  to  begin  the  develop- 
ment of  the  people  into  a  democracy.  He  found  much  the 
same  conditions  as  now  exist  in  Haiti.  When  he  began  to 
talk  about  "our  little  brown  brother"  it  took  strong  meas- 
ures to  stop  the  sarcasm  of  the  soldiers  who  sang,  "He 
may  be  a  brother  of  William  H.  T.,  but  he  ain't  no  kin  to 
me."  But  the  new  spirit  prevailed  and  today  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Filipino  toward  democracy  is  the  pride  of 
every  American.  The  job  in  Haiti  is  a  harder  one,  but  it 
can  be  accomplished  by  a  combination  of  the  highest  type 
of  administrative  and  moral  leadership. 

The  following  extracts  from  the  letter  of  a  naval  officer 
emphasize  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  render  an 
unselfish  service  to  the  backward  people  of  this  island: 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN  THE   CARIBBEAN  259 

In  1914  while  I  was  on  duty  in  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo  the 
thought  occurred  to  me  how  the  natives  of  these  islands  had 
been  neglected  by  the  various  philanthropic  and  religious  societies 
of  the  United  States. 

Again,  after  five  years  in  Europe,  I  have  once  more  returned 
to  Santo  Domingo.  Meanwhile  we  have  actually  taken  over  the 
government  of  this  Island  and  our  moral  responsibility  for  the 
improvement  and  progress  of  the  natives  has  been  greatly  in- 
creased, while  I  note  the  same  indifference  on  the  part  of  the 
various  philanthropic  and  welfare  organizations  of  the  United 
States  toward  this  work. 

The  citizens  of  the  United  States,  out  of  private  funds,  have 
spent  millions  of  dollars  in  helping  and  assisting  the  peoples  of 
war-stricken  Europe.  The  peoples  of  war-stricken  Haiti,  our 
own  particular  wards,  the  responsibility  for  whose  betterment 
we  cannot  now  escape  in  view  of  the  occupation,  have  received 
practically  nothing. 

Europe  has  suffered  from  the  devastation  of  wars  for  five  years; 
Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo  for  over  a  hundred.  At  least  50  per 
cent  of  the  population  are.  practically  reduced  to  savagery;  a 
certain  proportion  are  in  the  same  condition  as  their  ancestors 
were  when  they  were  brought  in  slavery  from  the  African  jungles. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  various  charitable  and  philanthropic 
institutions,  which  after  all  represent  the  public — the  people  of 
the  United  States — wish  to  shirk  their  moral  responsibilities  to- 
wards these  unfortunate  people.  Their  neglect  up  until  now, 
their  bending  all  their  energies  towards  Europe  at  the  expense 
of  their  foster-child  is  attributable  only  to  ignorance  and  lack 
of  knowledge  of  conditions. 

But  now  the  United  States  has  occupied  the  Island,  the  Ameri- 
can people  should  no  longer  remain  in  ignorance  of  the  true  con- 
ditions. As  soon  as  they  realize  and  can  visualize  the  state  of 
affairs,  knowing  that  now  we  are  legally  and  morally  responsible, 
have  got  to  see  the  thing  through,  I'm  sure  they  will  respond  as 
they  have  always  done  to  stricken  and  unfortunate  branches  of 
the  human  race. 

In  Central  America  I  found  a  different  attitude  toward 
the  United  States  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  Southland. 
There  seems  to  be  a  rather  general  feeling  that  there  is  no 
use  of  longer  kicking  against  the  pricks.  The  North  Amer- 
ican influence  must  remain  predominant  and  the  best  thing 
to  do  now  is  to  work  toward  making  it  a  just  influence. 
While  there  is  plenty  of  the  kind  of  prejudice  that  Ugarte 
and  his  school  stand  for  in  other  parts  of  Latin  America 
and  there  is  much  resentment  at  direct  interference  with  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  various  countries  especially  in  regard 


260  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

to  the  presence  of  the  marines  and  the  Bryan-Chamorro 
treaty  in  Nicaragua,  the  reasoning  of  the  average  man  seems 
to  run  something  like  this:  "Our  economic  life  must  neces- 
sarily depend  very  closely  on  the  United  States.  We  need 
the  help  of  the  United  States  in  stabilizing  our  political 
life.  We  do  not  object  to  receiving  such  helpful  influence. 
But  what  does  keep  us  continually  resentful  is  the  use  of 
marines  to  protect  foreign  investors  and  keep  in  power  an 
administration  that  is  despotic,  while  doing  nothing  toward 
helping  the  people  in  general  to  better  their  condition.  Let 
your  influence  be  toward  a  positive  program  of  improving  our 
political,  economic,  educational  and  social  lif  e,  not  in  suppress- 
ing self-expression  and  just  nationalism.  If  you  assume  the 
authority  to  say  we  cannot  have  revolutions,  then  you  must 
also  assume  the  authority  to  compel  our  rulers,  whom  you 
protect,  to  give  us  political  and  economic  justice.  We  are 
independent  nations  and  we  would  like  to  run  our  own 
affairs.  But  we  admit  that  economically  we  are  bound 
inseparably  to  you;  politically  we  need  your  steadying 
influence  to  bring  all  Central  America  into  harmonious  co- 
operative relations;  and  morally  we  need  your  stimulating 
example.  But  do  not  force  this  on  us.  Help  us  to  keep 
our  self-respect  and  our  national  honor  while  you  help  us 
to  rid  ourselves  of  the  tyranny  of  our  caudillos,  of  our  indi- 
vidualism, our  graft  and  our  inertia.  Please,  Mr.  Great 
Big  Yankee  Man,  we  know  we  need  your  capital  and  your 
powerful  influence  and  we  do  admire  you  for  many  things, 
but  please,  fewer  marines,  fewer  one-sided  treaties,  fewer 
demands  for  economic  exploitation,  and  more  help  in  de- 
veloping the  things  that  have  made  your  own  fine  nation 
great." 

In  Nicaragua  the  outstanding  influence  is  the  hundred 
United  States  marines  who  live  up  on  the  hill  dominating 
the  city.  A  hundred  marines  are  not  many,  but  as  one 
gentleman  expressed  it,  "When  we  see  that  hundred  up 
there,  we  see  a  hundred  thousand  behind  them  and  then 
behind  them  a  hundred  million.  So  we  know  we  must  not 
displease  Tio  Samuel" 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN  THE   CARIBBEAN  261 

The  American  bank  that  owns  the  railroad  and  dictates 
the  financial  policies  of  the  country  and  the  American 
customs  collectors  are  the  predominant  forces  that  persuade 
the  Nicaraguans  to  court  the  favor  of  the  United  States  or 
curse  their  luck,  as  the  case  may  be. 

As  soon  as  I  arrived  at  Managua,  I  had  a  perfect  ava- 
lanche of  callers  and  requests  for  engagements.  For  maybe 
this  American  could  have  some  influence  in  getting  his 
government  to  better  their  conditions.  Soon  my  days  were 
divided  up,  one  with  the  editors,  one  with  the  educators, 
one  with  the  literati,  one  with  the  cabinet,  one  with  the 
supreme  court,  and  so  on. 

The  presidential  elections  were  very  close  (August,  1920) 
and  the  big  question  with  the  Conservative  party  was, 
"Will  our  big  Uncle  stand  by  us  as  before  and  keep  the 
opposition  from  armed  rebellion,  so  we  may  continue  in 
power?"  The  Liberals  are  no  less  insistently  asking,  "Will 
the  United  States  force  the  Conservatives  to  let  us  vote  at 
these  elections  so  we  may  put  in  a  man  who  represents  the 
majority  of  the  people?"  It  has  often  been  said,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  true,  that  the  Conservative  government  in 
power  could  not  stand  for  any  time  unless  it  was  supported 
by  the  United  States,  for  a  large  majority  of  the  people  were 
Liberals.  As  Senator  Root  said  in  discussing  the  Bryan- 
Chamorro  treaty, 

I  am  told  that  if  the  marines  were  withdrawn,  the  present  presi- 
dent would  be  obliged  to  leave  the  country  immediately  or  he 
would  be  expelled  by  a  revolution.  This  situation  raises  a  very 
serious  question,  not  about  the  desirableness  of  the  treaty,  but 
about  the  way  in  which  the  treaty  should  be  made.  Can  we 
afford  to  make  a  treaty  with  Nicaragua,  granting  us  perpetual 
rights  in  that  country,  with  a  president  who  we  have  reason  to 
believe  does  not  represent  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  people  of 
the  country,  and  who  is  maintained  in  office  by  our  military  force, 
and  to  whom  we  would,  as  a  result  of  the  treaty,  pay  a  large  sum 
of  money  to  be  disposed  of  by  him  as  president?  I  should  be 
sorry  to  see  the  United  States  get  into  that  position.  We  don't 
want  to  maintain  a  government  in  Nicaragua  by  military  force 
perpetually,  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  if  we  were  to  withdraw 
our  force  after  making  such  a  treaty  there  would  be  a  revolution 
and  the  treaty  would  be  repudiated,  leaving  us  in  a  position  where 
our  legitimate  moral  influence  would  be  destroyed  and  nothing 


262  SAMUEL   GUY   INMAN 

but  brute  force  left.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence  that  the 
other  people  of  Central  America  look  at  the  subject  in  this  way. 
I  should  be  very  sorry  to  see  the  Central  Americans  convinced 
that  we  wish  to  rule  them  by  force,  for  it  would  be  the  end  of  all 
our  attempts  to  benefit  them  and  help  them  along  as  we  have 
been  trying  to  do. 

The  Liberals  now  claim  that,  since  the  United  States  has 
interfered  once  with  their  internal  affairs,  the  only  just 
thing  for  it  to  do  in  the  present  instance  is  to  compel  fair 
elections — that  if  it  simply  keeps  its  hands  off  it  will  mean 
the  continuance  of  the  Conservatives  in  power,  since  they 
will  count  themselves  in,  however  the  election  may  swing. 

The  Liberals  have  been  the  opponents  of  intervention 
and  of  course  have  not  been  popular  with  Americans.  In 
the  early  days  of  intervention,  their  leaders  like  Dr.  Leon- 
ardo Arguillo,  whose  tract  against  intervention  was  used  as 
a  text  in  the  University  of  Madrid,  were  very  bitter  in  their 
denunciations  of  the  situation.  Under  no  circumstances 
then  would  our  government  allow  them  to  attain  power, 
for  they  would,  it  was  thought,  immediately  break  faith  with 
American  bondholders.  These  leaders  now  say  that  they 
fully  recognize  the  obligations  they  have  contracted  with 
United  States  financial  concerns  and  would  hold  rigidly  to 
their  agreements  if  they  were  elected.  They  claim  that 
they  are  not  anti-American  nor  desirous  of  cutting  off 
relations  with  the  United  States  and  that  it  is  not  fan- 
to  hold  them  responsible  for  the  sins  of  Zelaya,  who  was  in 
no  wise  a  representative  Liberal,  though  he  claimed  to  be 
of  that  party. 

The  beneficial  results  of  the  American  intervention  in 
Nicaragua  seem  to  be  three:  peace,  freedom  of  speech  and 
the  protection  of  foreign  investors.  For  a  country  that  has 
been  the  victim  of  unprincipled  caudillos  for  many  decades, 
where  political  opponents  have  been  subject  to  torture  and 
robbery,  where  property  was  unsafe  and  foreign  interfer- 
ence continuous,  these  are  indeed  great  benefits.  The  Nic- 
araguans  put  over  against  these  benefits  the  following  evils: 
The  practical  loss  of  self-determination;  actual  decrease  in 
the  number  of  schools  and  the  weakening  of  the  educational 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  263 

system  by  turning  it  over  largely  to  the  church;  excessive 
taxes  which  work  against  the  poor  and  favor  the  rich;  lack 
of  any  responsible  body  working  for  a  constructive  policy 
for  improving  the  Nicaraguan  people  politically,  econom- 
ically, educationally  or  socially. 

If  the  Chileans  are  the  Yankees  of  South  America,  the 
Salvadoreans  are  the  Chileans  of  Central  America.  A  hard 
working  population  (comparatively),  a  lack  of  revolutions, 
numerous  small  industries,  a  well-organized  army,  empha- 
sis on  secondary  education  (always  comparatively,  remem- 
ber), a  strongly  developed  nationalism  with  a  converse 
questioning  concerning  North  American  imperialism,  and 
a  pride  of  leadership  among  sister  states — these  and  other 
characteristics  remind  one  familiar  with  South  American 
states  of  vigorous  little  Chile. 

The  most  democratic  president  I  met  in  all  Latin  America 
is  Don  Jorge  Melendez,  who  talked  with  me  nearly  an  hour 
recently  in  the  most  informal  way  about  the  people  of 
Salvador,  the  difficulties  of  avoiding  revolutions  in  Central 
America,  financial  and  political  relations  with  the  United 
States,  and  other  questions.  He  was  greatly  delighted  to 
have  North  American  visitors  come  to  Salvador,  he  said, 
because  he  recognized  the  necessity  of  closer  relations  be- 
tween his  country  and  the  United  States  and  thought  that 
such  visits  would  add  greatly  to  these  relations.  It  is  hard 
for  the  North  American  to  understand  the  difficulties  with 
which  Central  American  governments  have  to  cope.  If  the 
president  attempts  to  introduce  reforms  too  rapidly  he  has 
a  revolution  on  hand.  When  Senor  Melendez  came  into 
office  he  found  an  internal  debt  of  three  millions,  principally 
back  salaries,  due  to  the  loss  of  export  and  import  duties 
during  the  war.  This  debt  was  paid  off  the  first  year,  prin- 
cipally by  a  strict  collection  of  the  internal  revenues  on 
liquor,  which  unfortunately  is  one  of  the  largest  sources  of 
income. 

The  interest  on  the  national  debt,  held  largely  in  England, 
has  been  so  promptly  met  that  additional  credit,  not  yet 
used,  had  been  extended.  He  is  now  working  to  get  a 
small  change  in  the  banking  laws  to  meet  the  conditions  of 


264  SAMUEL   GUY   INMAN 

a  large  American  bank  which  is  desirous  of  opening  a 
branch  here. 

As  for  internal  improvements,  the  president  said  he  had 
just  returned  from  the  celebration  in  connection  with  the 
opening  of  the  railway  from  the  south  to  Cajutapeque  so 
that  one  may  travel  by  rail  from  the  southernmost  port, 
La  Union,  to  within  twenty  miles  of  the  capital,  covering 
the  rest  by  auto  at  present  but  very  soon  by  rail.  He  has 
just  signed  a  contract  with  the  International  Railway  of 
Central  America,  a  North  American  company,  to  build  the 
railroad  from  Santa  Ana,  near  the  Guatemalan  border,  to 
join  the  railroad  at  Zacapa,  Guatemala,  which  runs  to 
Puerto  Barrios.  Thus  Salvador  will  have  not  only  a  rail- 
road running  the  entire  length  of  the  country,  but  will  be 
brought  within  six  days  of  New  Orleans. 

How  much  this  will  mean  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  it  now  requires  at  least  five  or  six  weeks  to  get  second 
class  mail,  to  say  nothing  of  freight,  which  comes  from  the 
United  States  via  Panama,  then  up  the  west  coast.  Only 
first  class  mail  is  brought  by  mule  across  from  the  Atlantic 
port,  Puerto  Barrios.  The  contract  calls  for  the  completion 
of  this  new  road  before  February  15,  1923. 

The  president  spoke  of  the  problem  of  education  as  being 
one  of  the  most  difficult,  since  the  nation  had  been  tied  to 
old  systems  which  it  was  hard  to  change.  But  here  he  has 
recently  appointed  a  special  commission  to  study  the  subject 
and  he  expects  them  to  completely  modernize  the  public 
school  curriculum. 

In  the  president's  inaugural  address,  March  19,  1919,  he 
proposed  the  institution  of  a  national  campaign  against 
illiteracy.  This  has  recently  been  started.  At  that  time 
he  said, 

I  call  the  attention  of  thinking  men  and  especially  of  the 
Department  of  Public  Instruction  to  the  necessity  of  wiping  out 
the  worst  of  our  defects,  illiteracy.  How  is  it  possible  to  conceive 
of  effective  progress  and  definite  implanting  of  a  republic  when 
70  per  cent  of  the  people  cannot  read  and  write?  It  is  humiliating 
to  announce  such  a  sad  condition,  but  it  is  necessary  to  leave  aside 
sweet  sounding  phrases  and  face  frankly  our  situation,  under- 
standing that  we  are  building  on  the  sand  if  we  do  not  teach  those 


PRESENT  SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  265 

who  form  the  greatest  majority  of  the  nation  how  to  read  and 
write.  Public  instruction  must  receive  new  impulses.  Our  public 
schools  are  still  influenced  by  chaotic  systems  and  it  is  necessary 
to  popularize  our  instruction,  having  it  penetrate  to  the  very  lowest 
social  strata. 

If,  at  the  conclusion  of  my  term  of  office,  this  disturbing  per- 
centage of  illiteracy  has  been  considerably  reduced,  I  will  have 
a  legitimate  pride,  for  by  such  diminution  we  shall  have  rendered 
our  nation  the  greatest  service  in  preparing  the  present  generation 
to  realize  and  carry  forward  the  highest  ideals  of  a  democracy. 

On  inquiring  of  the  president  concerning  a  map  showing 
the  military  posts  of  the  country,  he  explained  that  while 
they  did  not  want  any  more  war  yet  it  was  necessary  to  be 
prepared.  In  twenty-four  hours,  by  communicating  his 
commands  to  three  brigadier-generals,  he  could  mobilize  an 
army  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  men.  One  year 
military  service  is  obligatory  for  all  men.  The  soldiers  are 
given  a  thorough  instruction  in  common  school  branches 
and  in  English,  so  that  when  they  leave  the  army  they  are 
much  better  prepared  for  fighting  life's  battles  than  before. 

Because  Salvador  was  the  only  Central  American  repub- 
lic that  did  not  join  the  allies  in  the  war  against  Germany 
and  because  she  has  recently  asked  the  United  States  for  a 
definition  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  it  was  particularly  inter- 
esting to  hear  the  president  declare  his  desire  for  close 
relations  with  the  United  States.  Because  his  ideas  seem 
to  be  so  well  represented  by  the  words  of  his  brother,  whom 
he  has  just  succeeded  in  the  presidency,  I  give  them  to  you 
here: 

If  American  diplomacy,  in  its  relations  with  the  Central  Ameri- 
can peoples,  maintains  unimpaired  the  principles  of  equity  and 
justice  laid  down  by  President  Wilson,  principles  of  cordiality, 
confraternity  and  respect  for  the  sovereignty  of  these  peoples, 
such  a  policy  of  mutual  consideration  and  good  understanding 
will  be  the  foundation  for  closer  commercial  relations  between 
the  United  States  and  Salvador,  as  well  as  among  the  other 
republics  of  the  American  continent. 

The  best  means  of  rapprochement  for  two  peoples  is  an  intimate 
reciprocal  knowledge  of  their  peculiar  moods,  their  psychology, 
their  ideals  and  initiative  in  the  path  of  civilization.  North 
Americans  have  made  very  little  systematic  and  methodical  effort 
to  comprehend  the  characteristics  of  the  political  and  social 
evolution  of  our  small  nationalities.  As  a  general  rule,  with  but 


266  SAMUEL   GUY   INMAN 

very  few  exceptions,  North  Americans  know  very  little  about 
our  peoples  because  of  false  representations  prompted  by  impulsive 
meddling  with  these  young  states.  We  have  been  dubbed  restless 
peoples,  ungovernable  hordes,  uneducated  masses  incapable  of 
civilization.  But  in  spite  of  all  this,  for  twenty-four  years  not 
one  single  internal  revolution  or  political  commotion  of  any  im- 
portance has  taken  place  in  this  republic,  which  has  lived  in 
perfect  peace,  devoted  to  its  work  during  a  long  period  of  progres- 
sive reconstruction. 

False  and  biased  report  spread  by  some  writers  in  North 
America,  and  the  little  importance  given  to  our  markets,  have 
contributed  to  the  neglect  by  Americans  of  the  study  of  these 
peoples  to  such  an  extent  that  they  have  but  very  scant  knowledge 
of  their  commercial  geography. 

The  breaking  out  of  the  European  war  was  necessary  in  order 
that  some  serious  thought  should  be  given  to  Central  and  South 
America,  for  prominent  men  in  the  United  States  to  undertake 
the  task  of  bringing  about  the  intellectual  rapprochement  of  our 
respective  countries,  and  for  these  nations  to  be  deemed  worthy 
of  study  and  encouragement. 

We  desire  to  know  more  intimately  North  America's  cultural 
status,  its  scholastic  and  municipal  institutions,  its  methods  of 
cultivation  of  the  land,  its  financial  organization,  its  literature, 
and  above  all  its  political  institutions  since  our  system  of  govern- 
ment is  analogous  to  that  of  the  American  people. 

The  interchange  of  university  professors  and  students  would 
be  an  effective  means  of  promoting  mutual  acquaintance.  And 
if  it  were  possible  and  an  agreement  could  be  reached  between 
the  United  States  and  other  countries  of  Central  and  South 
America,  nothing  could  contribute  more  to  the  strengthening  of 
our  intellectual  bonds  than  the  foundation  of  a  Pan  American 
University  in  the  United  States. 

The  men  of  the  two  Americas,  educated  side  by  side  in  the 
same  school,  would  work  together  to  strengthen  mutual  bonds 
of  everlasting  confraternity,  and  Spanish  America,  through  an 
army  of  its  men  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  practical  methods  of 
American  education,  would  benefit  by  a  new  standard  of  culture 
more  in  harmony  with  the  requirements  of  modern  life. 

The  sending  of  lecturers  to  our  universities,  the  establishment 
of  good  daily  papers  and  magazines  in  the  Spanish  language, 
having  a  wide  circulation  in  these  countries,  will  contribute  to 
the  spread  of  information  about  the  resources  and  characteristics 
of  the  North  Americans  in  our  midst. 

It  behooves  the  statesmen,  bankers  and  manufacturers  of  the 
United  States  to  make  effective  the  most  important  part  in  the 
relations  between  the  United  States  and  Salvador.  There  are  no 
prejudices  among  us  against  the  United  States.  We  admire  the 
strength  and  fearlessness  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  in 
their  financial  struggles,  in  their  republican  traditions  and  in  the 
doctrines  of  their  publicists;  we  study  closely  the  solutions  reached 


PEESENT   SITUATION   IN   THE   CAKIBBEAN  267 

in  their  political  evolution  and  their  great  administrative  progress, 
and  in  their  pedagogical  progress  we  find  an  inspiration  for  the 
improvement  and  reform  of  our  methods  of  teaching. 

Conditions  are  propitious  for  bringing  closer  together  the  ties 
that  bind  us  to  the  democracy  of  the  North,  founded  by  Washing- 
ton and  made  greater  by  Franklin,  Jefferson  and  many  other 
great  statesmen. 

Behind  those  words  of  Don  Carlos  Melendez  is  the  fact 
that  during  the  war,  when  he  was  president,  Salvador  had 
much  pro-German  sentiment,  which  kept  the  country  from 
entering  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  although  it  de- 
clared a  benevolent  neutrality  toward  them.  For  many 
years  there  has  been  a  more  marked  tendency  in  Salvador 
than  in  other  Central  American  countries  to  question  the 
intentions  of  the  United  States  with  reference  to  Latin 
America. 

Her  protest  against  the  Bryan-Chamorro  treaty  by  which 
Nicaragua  gave  the  United  States  the  right  to  build  a  canal 
through  that  country  and  establish  a  naval  base  in  the  Bay 
of  Fonseca  was  most  vigorous.  She  claimed  that  the  bay 
is  the  common  property  of  the  three  countries  which  it 
touches  and  that  the  establishment  of  a  naval  base  there  and 
the  fortification  of  some  of  the  islands  would  give  the  United 
States,  with  long  range  guns,  absolute  command  of  Salva- 
dorean territory  and  in  case  of  war  make  her  neutrality 
impossible. 

It  may  be  said  in  parenthesis  that  when  one  sees  the  bay 
it  is  easy  to  understand  the  truth  of  this  statement.  The 
fact  that  this  protest,  although  sustained  by  a  majority  of 
the  Central  American  court  of  justice,  was  unheeded  by  the 
United  States  did  not  serve  to  lessen  suspicion  of  America's 
imperialistic  motives. 

During  the  Second  Pan-American  Scientific  Congress  in 
Washington  in  1915  the  Salvadorean  delegate,  Dr.  Alonso 
Reyes  Guerra,  bearded  the  eagle  in  its  nest  and  said  plainly 
that  before  there  could  be  any  real  Pan-Americanism  four 
things  were  necessary:  first,  a  declaration  that  the  prohi- 
bition against  the  conquest  of  American  territory  contained 
in  the  Monroe  doctrine  applies  to  the  United  States  as  well 
as  to  European  countries;  second,  the  adoption  of  the  Drago 


268  SAMUEL  GUY   INMAN 

doctrine,  which  makes  the  collection  of  debts  exclusively  an 
internal  question  to  be  handled  within  each  nation  itself; 
third,  elimination  of  all  exceptions  to  the  doctrine  of  non- 
intervention; fourth,  the  institution  of  obligatory  arbitra- 
tion of  all  international  disputes. 

When  President  Wilson  made  his  address  to  the  Mexican 
editors,  which  was  the  most  satisfactory  statement  of  a 
decade  concerning  the  North  American  attitude  toward 
Latin  America,  President  Carlos  Melendez  of  Salvador 
immediately  wrote  to  President  Wilson  saying  that 

As  the  ruler  of  the  Salvadorean  people,  as  a  citizen  of  Latin 
America,  I  wish  to  express  to  you  my  firm  adhesion  to  the  ideas 
of  justice  and  sentiments  of  fraternity  with  which  your  speech 
to  the  Mexican  journalists  is  replete.  In  expounding  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  you  have  dispelled  prejudgments  and  unfavorable  con- 
jectures that  have  for  many  years  hampered  the  full  blossoming 
and  propagation  of  principles  of  true  cordiality  which  must  for 
the  common  good  exist  between  the  United  States  and  the  other 
republics  of  the  American  continent. 

When  the  United  States  saw  fit  to  have  a  special  clause 
placed  hi  the  League  of  Nations  pact,  reserving  the  rights 
involved  in  the  Monroe  doctrine  without  defining  them, 
Salvador  spoke  for  the  rest  of  Lathi  America  and  asked  the 
United  States  to  define  the  meaning  of  the  doctrine,  since 
other  American  nations  entering  the  League  would,  with 
the  new  clause,  themselves  recognize  as  binding  this  same 
doctrine.  Without  a  definition  of  the  Monroe  doctrine 
these  nations  would  be  in  the  position  of  a  man  signing  a 
note  without  knowing  its  amount. 

As  will  be  recalled,  our  state  department  simply  quoted 
hi  reply  a  part  of  President  Wilson's  address  to  the  Second 
Pan  American  Scientific  Congress.  This  has  not  satisfied 
many,  who  say  that  an  address  of  a  president  cannot  be 
taken  as  the  official  declaration  of  a  nation.  But  the  gov- 
ernment of  Salvador,  which  under  the  young  Melendez  is 
sympathetic  to  the  United  States  and  is  backed  by  a  public 
sentiment  of  no  little  strength  since  the  victory  of  the 
Allies,  has  outwardly  accepted  the  reply  as  satisfactory. 

Indications  are  that  the  endeavors  of  Salvador  to  find  out 
if  there  is  a  colored  gentleman  in  the  Pan  American  wood- 


PEESENT   SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  269 

pile  will  cease  temporarily  at  least,  and  that  the  growing 
commercial  and  financial  relations  with  the  United  States 
will  cause,  at  least  apparently,  a  more  sympathetic  attitude 
toward  us.  That  this  friendship  shall  be  real  as  well  as 
official,  there  should  be  a  close  study  of  Salvador  and  other 
Central  American  countries  by  the  government  and  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  We  should  be  represented  in 
those  countries  by  diplomats  who  have  a  background  of 
history,  language  and  culture  that  will  enable  them  to  pene- 
trate beneath  surface  appearance  and  politeness  to  a  real 
understanding  of  the  underlying  feelings  and  motives  of 
Central  American  life. 

The  outstanding  event  in  Guatemala  recently  is,  of  course, 
the  fall  of  Cabrera,  the  last  of  the  old  order  of  dictators  in 
Latin  America  except  one — Gomez  of  Venezuela. 

I  was  hi  Guatemala  both  immediately  before  and  imme- 
diately after  the  revolution.  Having  talked  with  Cabrera 
about  his  policies  during  my  first  visit,  I  desired  to  compare 
him  with  the  new  president  on  my  second  visit,  which  re- 
sulted in  an  experience  illustrative  of  the  difficulty  of  keep- 
ing straight  on  Central  American  politics. 

Asking  a  friend  whether  he  thought  I  could  see  the  presi- 
dent to  find  about  his  proposed  program,  he  replied  that  he 
thought  I  could  and  told  me  where  to  find  him.  Following 
the  directions  I  came  to  a  private  house  which  had  a  few 
soldiers  in  front  df  the  door  and,  on  explaining  that  I  wished 
to  see  the  president,  my  card  was  taken  in  where  I  saw  a 
patio  full  of  ragged  soldiers.  Pretty  soon  a  gentleman  in 
military  uniform  came  out  and  asked  me  what  I  wanted.  I 
told  him  that  I  was  anxious  to  see  the  president  and  talk 
with  him  about  his  new  program.  The  gentleman  seemed 
to  be  a  little  confused  and  I  again  explained  that  I  was  now 
going  back  to  the  United  States  and  wished  to  carry  a  mes- 
sage from  the  new  president  to  the  American  people.  But 
still  he  did  not  seem  to  understand  and  I  began  to  wonder 
if  my  Spanish  was  at  fault.  After  I  had  made  the  third 
attempt  to  explain  to  him  how  important  it  was  for  me  to 
see  the  chief  magistrate  and  find  out  his  attitude  toward 
things  American,  he  looked  at  me  in  a  queer  way  and  said, 


270  SAMUEL   GUY   INMAN 

"You  must  want  to  see  the  new  president.  It  is  the  old 
one  that  we  have  here  in  jail."  As  I  had  seen  the  old  presi- 
dent a  few  weeks  before,  I  had  no  desire  to  see  him  again 
and  hurried  on  up  to  the  house  of  President  Herrerra,  to 
which  I  was  directed,  where  I  had  a  long  interview  with 
him.  When  I  finally  found  him,  Don  Carlos  Herrerra,  the 
new  president,  said: 

Tell  the  people  of  the  United  States  that  you  met  in  Guatemala 
a  friend  of  the  Americans.  As  to  my  program,  in  two  words,  it 
is  to  follow  as  closely  as  possible  the  development  of  democracy 
as  it  has  taken  place  in  the  United  States.  In  Guatemala  we 
have  everything  to  do  and  I  know  of  no  better  way  of  doing  it 
than  studying  carefully  what  has  been  done  in  the  United  States. 
I  have  for  a  long  time  been  a  great  admirer  of  that  country. 
My  two  boys  were  educated  there.  (Indeed  these  two  boys  are 
American  citizens.)  I  have  visited  the  country  myself;  have  for 
a  long  time  had  business  connections  with  many  of  its  large  com- 
mercial organizations  and  believe  thoroughly  that  the  best  thing 
for  our  country's  development  is  to  maintain  cordial  relations 
with  the  United  States. 

President  Herrerra  is  a  new  type  of  ruler  for  Guatemala. 
He  is  not  a  military  man  or  even  a  politician.  During  the 
long  despotic  reign  of  Cabrera,  who  had  the  most  complete 
spy  system  ever  developed  and  who  persecuted  his  critics 
wherever  they  might  be  found  in  any  part  of  the  world,  who 
kept  his  prisons  filled  with  political  offenders  and  who 
allowed  no  open  opposition,  the  dictator  had  never  been 
quite  able  to  lay  hands  on  Herrerra,  one  of  the  richest  men 
in  the  country.  For  Don  Carlos  is  not  only  a  splendid  busi- 
ness man  but  has  also  proved  himself  to  be  careful  and  diplo- 
matic. He  is  one  of  the  few  men  who  maintained  his  inde- 
pendence and  yet  has  not  been  openly  persecuted  by 
Cabrera.  His  large  fortune  is  invested  in  sugar  and  coffee 
plantations.  He  is  probably  the  largest  exporter  of  both 
commodities  in  Guatemala  and  maintains  financial  relations 
with  many  of  the  big  banks  of  England  and  the  United 
States,  in  which  countries  he  is  by  no  means  a  stranger. 

His  administration  will  no  doubt  be  mainly  a  business 
administration,  devoted  to  the  development  of  Guatemala's 
wonderful  economic  resources.  Already  business  men,  both 


PRESENT   SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  271 

native  and  American,  are  planning  for  great  increases  in 
commercial  development.  Under  the  Cabrera  regime  mer- 
chants did  not  dare  order  more  than  they  needed  for  imme- 
diate delivery,  for  they  never  knew  what  tomorrow  might 
bring  forth.  But  now  merchants  are  placing  large  orders 
with  every  confidence  that  they  are  entering  a  new  regime. 
Already  American  Commercial  travelers  are  feeling  this 
optimism  as  reflected  in  increased  orders. 

President  Herrerra  was  anxious  to  have  me  see  his  min- 
ister of  foreign  affairs,  Serior  Aguirre,  hi  order  to  talk  with 
him  more  in  detail  concerning  the  lines  along  which  the  ad- 
ministration would  like  the  help  of  the  United  States.  Sefior 
Aguirre  is  a  cultured  gentleman  who  has  traveled  widely, 
speaks  several  languages  and  is  in  every  way  a  cosmopolite. 
He  had  charge  of  Guatemala's  exhibit  at  the  San  Francisco 
Exposition  and  has  been  active  in  many  of  the  international 
expositions  of  the  world.  While  he  is  a  farmer  in  the  sense 
that  he  owns  a  big  plantation  and  gets  his  income  from  it, 
yet  he  is  especially  interested  in  the  matter  of  international 
relations  and  has  made  a  deep  study  of  the  question  from 
the  standpoint  of  economics.  Senor  Aguirre  said: 

We  must  have  the  help  of  the  United  States,  along  three  lines 
particularly.  First,  we  need  your  moral  help.  In  the  past 
Guatemaltecos  have  had  to  hang  their  heads  because  of  the  utter 
backwardness  of  their  country  and  the  lack  of  liberty  we  have 
enjoyed.  All  of  this  must  be  changed.  We  must  come  out  into 
modern  life.  We  realize  that  fundamentally  our  problem  is  a 
moral  one  and  we  are  not  strong  enough  to  cope  with  this  problem 
alone.  We  earnestly  hope  for  the  help  of  the  United  States  in 
the  development  of  our  moral  life.  Second,  we  need  financial 
help.  Guatemala  is  one  of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world. 
There  is  practically  nothing  that  we  cannot  produce.  We  have 
not  only  the  finest  coffee  in  the  world  but  wonderful  sugar  and 
all  kinds  of  tropical  fruits.  There  is  an  opportunity  to  further 
develop  our  agriculture  and  also  for  building  factories.  With 
all  of  our  fruit,  canning  factories  would  give  splendid  results. 
Our  water  power  furnishes  great  opportunities  for  the  develop- 
ment of  electricity.  We  ought  to  have  several  North  American 
banks  immediately. 

There  is  also  an  opening  for  wholesale  and  retail  stores  handling 
exclusively  American  goods. 

In  the  third  place  we  need  your  help  in  education.  Here  almost 
everything  is  to  be  done.  While  the  previous  administration 


272  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

pretended  to  be  a  friend  of  education  and  erected  a  certain  number 
of  showy  buildings,  they  have  been  little  more  than  shells.  The 
education  of  the  more  than  a  million  Indians  in  our  population 
is  in  itself  a  tremendous  problem.  We  must  make  our  education 
modern  and  to  whom  can  we  look  for  help  so  much  as  to  the 
United  States  which  has  advanced  so  rapidly  along  educational 
lines? 

My  idea  also  is  to  make  Guatemala  a  modern  Mecca  for  Ameri- 
can tourists.  We  have  one  of  the  finest  climates  in  the  world, 
some  of  the  most  beautiful  scenery,  with  mountains  and  lakes 
more  wonderful  than  those  of  Switzerland  and  we  are  within  three 
days  of  New  Orleans.  Of  course  we  must  first  prepare  for  these 
tourists  by  building  automobile  roads  and  hotels.  This  we  expect 
to  begin  very  soon.  If  we  can  have  a  stream  of  American  tourists 
coming  to  Guatemala  the  development  of  our  country  will  be 
assured.  Heretofore  we  have  lived  to  ourselves.  The  former 
government  discouraged  visitors  to  the  country,  as  it  did  not  care 
for  the  outside  world  to  know  of  its  abuses.  But  our  policy  is 
to  throw  open  the  gates  to  all  friends  of  progress.  We  want  the 
world  to  come  and  see  us. 

The  greatest  criticism  that  the  Guatemalan  people  had 
of  the  United  States  government  during  the  exciting  days 
of  the  revolution,  was  the  publication  in  the  Guatemalan 
press  of  a  note  from  the  state  department  which  indicated 
that  our  government  was  very  much  opposed  to  the  revolu- 
tion. The  revolutionary  forces  had  conducted  themselves 
in  a  most  remarkable  way.  In  fact  nothing  like  it  has  ever 
been  known  in  Latin  America.  For  four  months  they 
carried  on  a  campaign  against  Cabrera  by  means  of  the  press 
and  through  public  addresses,  continually  stating  that  they 
did  not  intend  to  resort  to  arms  but  were  determined  to 
make  this  a  peaceful  revolution.  They  stuck  to  this  deter- 
mination even  when  they  were  fired  upon  by  Cabrera's 
soldiers  during  one  of  their  peaceful  parades.  The  reform 
or  "unionist"  movement  represented  at  least  90  per  cent 
of  the  nation.  It  did  not  therefore  seem  consistent  with 
the  history  of  the  United  States  or  with  the  ideals  of  liberty 
for  which  we  stand  that  our  government  should  publish  the 
statement  which  seemed  to  command  the  Guatemalans  not 
to  revolt  against  one  of  the  worst  tyrannies  that  any  people 
have  been  subjected  to,  and  who  Americans  ought  to  know 
never  kept  a  promise  for  reform. 


PKESENT   SITUATION   IN  THE   CAKIBBEAN  273 

The  following  is  the  American  note  which  caused  such 
unfavorable  comment: 

Mr.  Benton  McMillin,  envoy  extraordinary  and  minister  pleni- 
potentiary of  the  United  States  of  America  to  Guatemala,  after 
the  issuance  of  the  president's  proclamation,  issued,  with  the 
authority  of  his  government,  the  following  for  publication: 

"The  steady  policy  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  is 
to  encourage  constitutional  government  and  free  elections  in 
Central  America.  Having  the  greatest  interest  therefore  in  the 
constitutional  progress  of  Guatemala,  the  government  of  the 
United  States  has  learned  with  great  pleasure  of  the  proclamation 
of  President  Estrada  Cabrera  regarding  constitutional  guarantees 
and  has  confidence  in  view  of  the  statements  just  made  to  this 
government  by  President  Estrada  Cabrera,  that  he  will  faithfully 
carry  out  the  reforms  proclaimed. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  is  opposed  to  revolution- 
ary measures  and  firmly  believes  in  view  of  President  Cabrera's 
proclamation  there  is  no  excuse  for  starting  a  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  Guatemala  and  that  therefore  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized 
world  the  gravest  responsibility  would  rest  with  any  man  or  group 
of  men  who  should  start  such  a  movement.  The  government  of 
the  United  States  particularly  desires  to  see  peaceful  constitutional 
progress  in  Guatemala  and  would  regard  with  horror  any  actions 
which  should  cause  a  needless  and  inexcusable  revolution  to  be 
commenced  in  that  country."  (From  Diario  de  Centra- America, 
Guatemala,  April  5,  1920.) 

It  ought  to  be  said  that  this  note  was  published  by  Min- 
ister McMillin  not  because  of  his  approval  of  its  contents 
but  by  order  of  his  superior  authority. 

The  final  fall  of  Cabrera  came  when  the  National  Assem- 
bly declared  him  insane  and  unfit  for  office  and  elected  Don 
Carlos  Herrerra  to  replace  him.  A  few  days  before  this 
action  Cabrera's  assistant  minister  of  war,  his  faithful 
friend  and  servant  for  a  decade,  reported  to  his  master  that 
some  of  his  troops  had  deserted.  This  so  enraged  Cabrera 
that  he  knocked  the  man  down  with  the  butt  of  his  pistol 
and  kicked  him  around.  The  man  finally  escaped  and  took 
refuge  in  the  English  legation  and  afterwards  revealed  to 
the  National  Assembly  that  Cabrera  was  living  a  life  in  his 
palace  outside  of  the  city  which  showed  him  to  be  insane. 
He  kept  in  his  house  some  old  Indian  witches  and  herb- 
doctors  whose  advice  he  continually  accepted,  and  his  sus- 
picions of  his  closest  friends  and  his  cruelty  to  everyone 


274  SAMUEL   GUY  INMAN 

showed  that  he  was  not  in  his  right  mind.  After  the  Assem- 
bly had  declared  him  insane  he  began  to  bombard  the  city 
and  for  eight  days  there  were  the  most  frightful  conditions 
in  the  capital. 

The  American  legation  was  besieged  by  a  large  number  of 
people  who  were  afraid  of  then*  lives  and  for  a  week  Minister 
and  Mrs.  McMillin  had  181  refugees  in  the  legation.  Most 
of  these  were  women  and  children.  There  were  fourteen 
members  of  President  Herrerra's  family  there;  some  forty 
Americans,  and  the  rest  represented  all  grades  of  Guate- 
maltecos.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  confusion  that  existed 
at  that  time.  American  marines  were  brought  up  from  the 
Tacoma  on  the  Pacific  shore  and  from  the  Niagara  on  the 
Atlantic  side.  Machine  guns  were  stationed  on  both  sides 
of  the  legation  and  marines  stood  guard  hi  order  to  protect 
the  legation,  which  was  several  tunes  threatened  by  mobs 
who  were  infuriated  against  two  Americans  who  had  been 
in  league  with  President  Cabrera  hi  exploiting  the  people. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  about  it  all  was  the 
heroism  and  unselfish  service  of  Mrs.  McMillin,  who  was 
everything  to  everyone  during  those  eight  days,  giving  up 
her  own  room  to  three  of  the  women  who  were  about  to 
give  birth  to  children  and  going  from  one  part  of  the  house 
to  the  other  ministering  to  the  sick  and  quieting  the  nervous. 
The  fourth  day  of  the  siege  the  house  was  put  under  mili- 
tary rule.  The  cook  of  the  Niagara  was  brought  up  to 
take  charge  of  the  rationing,  which  was  the  only  thing  that 
saved  Mrs.  McMillin  from  a  complete  breakdown,  her  own 
servants  being  so  excited  that  they  could  not  even  make 
the  coffee. 

Things  in  Guatemala  are  rapidly  becoming  reorganized 
and  there  are  evidences  everywhere  of  the  new  day.  The 
ordinary  revolution  hi  Central  America  is  an  opera  bouffe 
affair,  but  this  upheaval  in  Guatemala  has  been  justified  if 
any  revolution  in  the  world  was  ever  justified.  It  has  been 
carried  out  in  the  quietest  possible  way.  When  the  city 
was  fired  upon  the  Unionist  party  did  not  have  any  arms 
whatever  with  which  to  protect  themselves.  They  had 
maintained,  up  to  the  very  last,  their  determination  not 


PRESENT  SITUATION   IN   THE   CARIBBEAN  275 

to  resort  to  arms.  They  were  able  to  defend  the  city  when 
it  was  attacked  by  Cabrera  only  because  the  government 
troops  themselves  turned  to  the  new  regime.  Many  of  the 
men  who  are  now  in  power  have  suffered  terrible  tortures 
for  long  years  for  the  sake  of  liberty.  They  have  learned 
by  these  sufferings  the  cost  of  liberty  and  it  is  the  judgment 
of  people  who  know  Guatemala  best  that  they  will  work 
for  a  really  democratic  government  in  one  of  the  richest 
countries  of  all  the  Americas. 

The  countries  mentioned  presented  to  me  the  most  inter- 
esting situations  and  there  is  not  time  to  describe  the  others. 
Cuba,  by  means  of  the  Platt  amendment  and  the  predom- 
inant economic  influence  of  American  capital  which  owns 
most  of  the  great  sugar  and  tobacco  estates,  can  have  no 
political  or  economic  policies  not  approved  by  the  United 
States.  Our  protection  of  the  Conservative  government 
there  has  brought  immense  prosperity  to  certain  classes. 

But  if  we  do  not  want  Cuba  to  become  an  American  Ire- 
land we  must  study  with  her  some  necessary  constructive 
policies. 

Honduras  means  "the  depths"  and  that  unfortunate 
country  has  almost  reached  them  in  many  regards.  She 
does  whatever  we  suggest  for  her  to  do.  But  our  sug- 
gestions so  far  are  purely  political  and  not  educational. 

The  revolutionary  government  of  Costa  Rica  has  learned 
the  impossibility  of  standing  without  the  recognition  of  the 
United  States,  and  a  constitutional  government,  grateful  to 
us  for  our  stand,  is  now  reestablishing  itself  as  it  looks  to 
us  for  support. 

Panamd  seldom  challenges  the  American  influence,  but 
the  presence  of  our  soldiers  in  the  interior  of  the  country 
and  the  shirt-sleeve  diplomacy  used  in  demanding  the  Island 
of  Taboga,  caused  the  most  regrettable  insult  to  General 
Pershing  and  shows  we  will  get  much  more  by  adopting 
some  fine  Spanish  phrases  than  by  shouting  "hands  up!" 

Summing  up,  my  first-hand  observations  in  the  Carib- 
bean lead  me  to  the  following  conclusions: 

1.  The  United  States  really  has  here  at  the  present  time 
a  colonial  proposition. 


276  SAMUEL  GUY  INMAN 

2.  The  lack  of  a  frank  recognition  of  the  situation  and 
lack  of  colonial  experience  have  led  us  into  mistakes  that 
have  made  our  intervention  more  resented  than  is  necessary. 

3.  Failure  to  mark  out  a  definite  policy,  and  leaving  mat- 
ters largely  to  the  military,  has  led  to  a  policy  of  suppression 
rather  than  of  constructive  helpfulness. 

4.  Intervention  being  principally  to  conserve  order,  pro- 
tect American  investors  and  ward  off  European  interference, 
the  reactionary  parties  in  the  various  countries  are  too  often 
sustained  and  help  is  too  often  confined  to  material  matters 
with  no  consideration  for  building  up  education. 

I  would  respectfully  suggest  the  following  as  helpful  steps 
in  dealing  with  the  all  important  question  of  our  relations 
with  the  Caribbean  countries: 

1.  A  strong  department  with  recognized  responsibility  in 
the  United  States  government  to  study  conditions  and  ad- 
vise the  executive  and  legislative  powers  concerning  rela- 
tions between  this  country  and  smaller  countries  specially 
dependent  upon  us.    This  department  could  well  have  an 
advisory  committee  made  up  of  some  outstanding  private 
citizens  who  are  in  a  position  to  aid  hi  such  work.     Immedi- 
ate economic,  educational  and  social  surveys  should  be  made 
to  determine  the  exact  situation  and  needs  of  the  various 
countries. 

2.  Signing  of  treaties  with  certain  Caribbean  countries 
that  recognize  their  sovereignty  but  secure  the  aid  of  the 
United  States  in  developing  stable  government,  fair  elec- 
tions,   unproved    educational    facilities,    needed    financial 
accommodation,  etc. 

3.  Withdrawal  of  United  States  marines  from  countries 
where  now  stationed. 

4.  Special  effort  to  help  in  the  broad  education  of  the 
people  of  these  countries  through  both  government  and 
private  agencies. 

5.  Cultivation  of  appreciation  of  the  history,  literature, 
social  life  and  problems  of  these  countries  on  the  part  of 
Americans. 

6.  Turn  on  the  light  and  let  the  peoples  interested  pub- 
licly determine  and  frankly  avow  the  policy  for  their  serv- 
ants to  follow  in  forming  relations. 


THE  CENTRAL  AMERICAN  REPUBLICS  AND 
THEIR  PROBLEMS 

By  Webster  E.  Browning,  Ph.D.,  Educational  Secretary,  Com- 
mittee on  Cooperation  in  Latin  America;  formerly 
President  of  the  American  College  in  Chile 

It  is  a  peculiar  and  interesting  fact  that  those  twenty 
states  which  lie  to  the  south  of  us  and  form  the  geographical 
division  generally  known  as  Latin  America,  are  less  known 
to  the  average  citizens  of  the  United  States  than  are  other 
lands  that  lie  much  more  distant,  even  on  the  other  side  of 
the  earth.  It  would  be  safe  to  say  that  through  the  crucible 
of  the  World  War  the  resurrected  nationalities,  such  as 
Czecho-Slovakia,  Jugoslavia,  the  Ukraine  and  Esthonia,  in 
Europe,  or  Kurdistan,  Armenia,  and  Azerbaijan,  in  Asia, 
have  a  more  distinct  personality  in  our  minds  than  have 
Nicaragua,  Honduras  or  Venezuela,  our  near  neighbors  to 
the  south  and  members  of  the  family  of  American  nations 
for  a  hundred  years.  The  Asian  Mesopotamia  is  probably 
a  clearer  concept  in  the  average  American  mind  than  is  the 
South  American  Mesopotamia  formed  by  the  republic  of 
Paraguay  and  th'e  Argentine  provinces  of  Entre  Rios  and 
Corrientes,  although  their  population  is  about  the  same 
and  the  area  of  the  latter  is  almost  double  the  former.  One 
of  the  reasons  for  this  lack  of  exact  knowledge  in  regard  to 
the  countries  of  Latin  America  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
it  lies  far  off  to  one  side  from  the  usual  line  of  travel.  Our 
American  tourists  visit  those  portions  of  the  world  which 
lie  east  or  west,  but  few  of  them  seldom  turn  to  the  South 
to  the  lands  that  lie  under  the  gleam  of  the  southern  cross. 

Another  explanation  is  the  fact  that  we  have  had  but 
comparatively  few  diplomatic  questions  of  any  great  im- 
portance with  the  countries  that  lie  to  the  south.  They 
themselves  have  had  local  questions  which  sometimes 
involved  the  United  States,  but,  on  the  whole,  we  have  been 

277 


278  WEBSTER  E.    BROWNING 

able  to  keep  apart  from  any  responsibility  in  the  solution  of 
their  problems.  And  it  must  also  be  confessed  and  some- 
what shamefacedly,  that  when  we  have  been  compelled  to 
participate  in  Latin  American  diplomacy  our  diplomats  and 
statesmen  have  not  always  taken  the  trouble  to  study  local 
conditions,  to  ascertain  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  and  thus 
render  a  decision  which  left  us  higher  in  the  estimation  of 
the  peoples  with  whom  we  were  dealing. 

It  is  even  more  strange  that  the  Latin  nations  which  lie 
nearest  to  us,  contrary  to  the  usual  rule,  are  those  which  are 
less  known  and  on  which  our  own  supposedly  superior  civ- 
ilization has  had  a  less  evident  effect.  The  Central  Amer- 
ican republics  are  less  often  in  our  thoughts  and  in  our 
estimates  than  are  Argentina,  Uruguay,  Chile  and  Brazil, 
which  lie  to  the  far  south  in  the  temperate  zone  and  pour 
their  bounteous  products  into  our  markets  and  receive  in 
turn  our  exports  in  an  ever-increasing  ratio.  In  other 
words  our  interest  in  Latin  America  has  been  largely  com- 
mercial and  utilitarian,  largely  limited  to  those  regions 
which  have  promised  the  highest  and  quickest  returns  on  a 
financial  investment. 

GEOGRAPHICAL  SETTING 

This  paper  is  to  deal  with  "The  Central  American  Repub- 
lics and  their  Problems,"  but,  in  view  of  the  somewhat  vague 
understanding  of  the  region  to  be  described,  which  prevails 
in  most  quarters,  it  may  be  well  to  set  up  at  the  beginning 
a  geographical  and  historical  perspective  in  order  that  our 
study  may  be  the  more  clearly  understood. 

To  locate  the  six  republics  of  Central  America  on  the 
map,  they  border  on  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west  and 
south,  and  their  shores  are  washed  by  the  waters  of  the 
Caribbean  Sea  on  the  east,  while,  through  the  territory  of 
one  of  them,  runs  that  marvel  of  engineering  skill,  the 
Panama  Canal,  which  Viscount  Bryce  has  so  aptly  termed 
"the  greatest  liberty  ever  taken  with  nature."  To  the 
northwest  lies  the  territory  of  Mexico,  our  own  troubled 
and  too  little  appreciated  neighbor,  and  in  the  south  Panama 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  279 

clings,  as  if  in  filial  love,  to  the  skirts  of  its  mother,  the  justly 
discontented  republic  of  Colombia.  Lying  entirely  within 
the  tropics,  between  the  parallels  seven  and  eighteen  north 
latitude,  their  longitude  would  fall,  roughly  speaking,  be- 
tween that  of  Des  Moines  or  Little  Rock,  on  the  west,  and 
Washington  on  the  east.  Thus  their  general  trend  is  from 
northwest  to  southeast,  producing  the  easting  of  the  south- 
ern half  of  the  American  continent  which  throws  its  east 
shores  nearer  to  Europe  and  brings  the  west  directly  south 
of  the  great  ports  on  our  east  coast. 

HISTORICAL  SETTING 

As  to  their  historical  setting,  the  five  original  republics — 
Guatemala,  Honduras,  Nicaragua,  Salvador  and  Costa  Rica 
— under  Spanish  rule,  which  ended  in  1821,  formed  the 
Kingdom  of  Guatemala.  This  kingdom  was  ruled  by  a 
captain-general  who  was  directly  responsible  to  the  throne, 
but  who  did  not  assume  the  title  of  viceroy,  as  did  the 
rulers  of  Peru,  farther  south.  Due  principally  to  the  efforts 
of  Francisco  Moraz£n,  of  Honduras,  a  leader  of  the  Liberals, 
independence  from  Spain  was  secured  in  1821  and  a  federal 
republic  was  established  which  lasted  until  1842.  At  that 
time,  because  of  mutual  jealousies,  this  federation  broke  up 
into  its  component  parts  and  each  state,  at  least  in  name 
and  theory,  became  an  independent  republic.  In  but  few 
cases,  however,  and  for  no  great  length  of  time,  has  repub- 
licanism existed  in  more  than  name  and  the  President  has 
too  often  relied  on  the  army  to  place  and  maintain  him  in 
power,  rather  than  on  the  votes  of  his  fellow  citizens.  In- 
ternational jealousies  have  persisted  and  because  of  this 
and  other  handicaps,  no  one  of  the  five  republics  has  kept 
proper  pace  with  the  progress  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  nations 
to  the  north  or  with  the  Latin  states  in  the  far  south  of  the 
continent. 

ATTEMPTS  AT  UNION 

Repeated  efforts  have  been  made  to  reunite  these  weak 
and  often  warring  political  units  into  one  strong  state;  but 
many  of  the  people  seem  to  partake  of  the  turbulent  char- 


280  WEBSTER  E.    BROWNING 

acter  of  their  volcanic  territory,  and  all  such  well-intentioned 
efforts  have  failed.  A  Central  American  ' '  Hague  Tribunal ' ' 
was  set  up  a  few  years  ago,  all  the  republics  except  Costa 
Rica  signed  the  modus  vivendi  then  drawn  up,  and  occa- 
sional meetings  have  been  held  for  the  purpose  of  adjust- 
ing differences;  yet  but  little  has  been  gained  in  the  way  of 
a  permanent  cementing  of  international  friendships.  On 
the  contrary,  Central  America  has  been  notorious  among 
the  nations  of  the  world  because  of  its  constant  revolution- 
ary outbreaks  and  the  amazing  facility  with  which  some  of 
its  peoples  have  repudiated  or  failed  to  cancel  foreign  debts. 
The  soil  has  been  drenched  with  the  blood  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, and  never  have  so-called  Christian  nations  so  given 
themselves  up  to  mutual  slaughter  and  despoilment.  Civil 
wars  have  frequently  reduced  the  male  population  to  almost 
the  vanishing  point,  and  the  territory  has  been  impover- 
ished and  laid  waste  with  a  ferocity  which  has  been  seldom 
equalled  in  history. 

During  the  rule  of  Spain  the  governors  were  but  official 
exploiters  and  assassins  on  a  large  scale.  Under  the  repub- 
lican form  of  government,  these  exploiters  have  too  often 
given  way  to  dictators,  or  presidents  in  name,  whose  mutual 
jealousies  have  often  plunged  their  peoples  into  war  and 
caused  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  many  thousands  of  citi- 
zens whose  energies  should  have  been  used  in  the  estab- 
lishing of  stable  economic  conditions.  Progress  has  been 
impossible  and  the  prosperity  of  these  peoples  is  constantly 
hampered  by  enormous  debts,  when  they  have  not  been 
cancelled  by  the  simple  process  of  repudiation. 

A  REGION  OF  VOLCANIC  DISTURBANCES 

The  unusual  frequency  of  earthquakes  and  volcanic  erup- 
tions has  also  been  a  hindrance  to  the  prosperity  and  eco- 
nomic stability  of  Central  America.  This  section  seems  to 
form  a  species  of  joint  in  the  crust  of  the  earth,  a  weak 
point  especially  susceptible  to  disturbances  from  within, 
and  its  volcanoes  are  among  the  most  destructive  on  earth. 
Six  of  these  are  located  in  Guatemala,  two  in  Salvador, 
four  hi  Nicaragua,  and  four  in  Costa  Rica. 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  281 

The  havoc  wrought  by  the  play  of  these  terrific  forces  had 
full  illustration  in  the  destruction  of  the  second  city  of 
Guatemala,  now  known  as  Antigua,  in  1773,  by  a  combina- 
tion of  seismic  and  volcanic  movements;  in  the  eruption  of 
Santa  Maria,  in  the  same  republic  in  1912,  which  covered 
many  square  leagues  with  lava  and  ashes  and  blotted  out 
thousands  of  lives;  and,  more  recently,  in  the  destruction 
of  the  present  capital  of  Guatemala  in  December,  1917. 

PANAMA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Panama^  not  yet  named  in  the  above  lines,  is  the  sixth 
member  of  the  Central  American  group  and  the  one  which 
has  most  recently  become  an  independent  nationality.  In 
1903,  Panama,  then  a  province  or  state  in  the  republic  of 
Colombia,  seceded  from  that  country,  and  under  the  aegis 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  quickly  constituted  itself 
as  a  republic.  Its  existence  has  been  very  closely  allied 
with  the  interests  of  the  United  States  and  it  is  probable  that 
its  independence  could  not  have  been  achieved  without  the 
not  altogether  disinterested  advice  and  help  of  its  powerful 
friend  to  the  north,  and  the  echoes  of  "I  took  Panama" 
have  been  a  very  real  detriment  to  the  Progress  of  Pan- 
Americanism,  or  the  cultivation  of  intimate  friendly  rela- 
tions between  the  United  States  of  America  and  the  remain- 
ing nations  of  the  continent. 

The  area  of  tThe  Panamanian  republic  is  about  equal  to 
that  of  the  the  state  of  Maine,  or  a  little  less  than  that  of 
Ireland,  and  a  strip  of  land  10  miles  in  width  and  running 
from  ocean  to  ocean  has  been  ceded  to  the  United  States 
for  the  uses  of  the  Canal.  As  a  matter  of  interest,  the  cities 
of  Colon  and  Panamd,  which  lie  outside  the  Zone,  are  gen- 
erally policed  by  the  United  States  and  this  latest-born  of 
American  republics  does  little  that  is  not  approved  by 
Washington. 

COMPARATIVE  AREA  AND  POPULATION 

The  following  table  will  show  the  comparative  area  and 
population  of  the  six  republics  of  Central  America,  although 
statisticians  differ  in  their  figures  and  unsettled  boundary 
disputes  often  make  an  exact  statement  impossible: 


282  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

Square  miles  Population 

Nicaragua 49,200  600,000 

Guatemala 48,300  2,000,000 

Honduras 46,250  555,000 

Panama 31,520  350,000 

Costa  Rica 18,400  420,000 

Salvador 7,225  1,200,000 


Total 200,895        5,125,000 

As  regards  the  composition  of  the  population  of  Central 
America,  the  native  Indian  races  are  largely  represented. 
Sixty  per  cent  of  the  population  of  Guatemala,  for  example, 
is  estimated  as  pure  Indians,  divided  into  thirty-six  tribes, 
each  with  its  own  language,  or  dialect,  customs,  dress  and 
religious  beliefs.  Of  pure  foreigners  there  are  only  some 
15,000.  The  other  republics  have  a  smaller  percentage  of 
pure  Indians,  but  in  all  of  them  these  "native  sons"  form 
the  background  of  the  population  and  constitute  a  serious 
problem. 

COMPOSITE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  POPULATION 

The  unusually  composite  character  of  the  population  may 
be  judged  from  the  following  table  of  crosses  which,  although 
prepared  for  the  republic  of  Salvador,  will  apply  with  cer- 
tain restrictions,  to  the  entire  six  republics.  It  forms  an 
interesting  study  in  ethnology  and  will  alone  explain  many 
facts  in  the  history  and  character  of  the  peoples  of  Central 
America.  It  is  as  follows: 

Crosses  Father  Mother 

Ladino  (mestizo) Spaniard  Indian 

Castiso Spaniard  Ladina 

EspaOlo Castiso  Spanish 

Mulato Negro  Spanish 

Morisco Spaniard  Mulata 

Albino Morisco  Spanish 

Tornatos Albino  Spanish 

Lobo  (wolf) Negro  Indian 

Caribujo Lobo  Indian 

Grifo Lobo  Negress 

Barsino Coyote  (Indian)  Mulata 

Albarazado Coyote  Indian 

Chaniso Coyote  Ladina 

Mechino Coyote  Loba 


CENTRAL   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  283 

In  addition  to  these  native  crosses,  every  nation  of  the 
world  has  contributed  to  the  formation  of  the  modern  peo- 
ples of  Central  America.  Buccaneers,  sea-rovers,  tourists, 
exiles  from  all  lands — Teutons,  Anglo-Saxons,  Scandina- 
vians, Greeks,  Latins,  Turks,  Dutch,  Asiatics,  the  sable 
African — many  of  them  honest  tradesmen  who  have  made 
permanent  homes  in  these  lands,  have  generously  mingled 
their  blood  with  that  of  the  natives.  It  is  probable  that 
few,  if  any,  other  centers  of  population  offer  to  the  world 
such  an  amazing  mixture  of  the  races  as  do  the  six  republics 
of  Central  America. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  PEOPLES 

Although  no  conclusive  proof  may  be  adduced,  there  is 
good  reason  to  believe  that  the  Indians  of  Central  America 
had  an  Asiatic  origin,  and  the  general  trend  of  the  tribes 
seems  to  have  been  northward.  Copan,  in  Honduras,  sup- 
posedly marks  the  oldest  civilization  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  of  which  there  is  a  record,  and  this  was  followed  by 
the  Mayan  civilization  whose  ruins  exist  near  the  little 
village  of  Quirigua,  in  Guatemala,  and  these  in  turn  were 
followed  by  the  tribes  that  invaded  what  is  now  Mexico 
and  left  as  monuments  their  magnificent  temples  and  cities 
in  Yucatan,  Chiapas  and  Oaxaca.  These  monuments  pre- 
ceded the  formation  of  the  Aztec  empire  and  are  even 
pre-Toltec  in  their  origin,  antedating  the  pyramids  of 
Egypt,  in  the  estimate  of  some  archeologists,  by  thousands 
of  years.  The  glyphs  of  Quirigud  are  as  yet  undeciphered, 
although  the  great  stone  calendar  has  been  squared  with 
the  Gregorian,  and  the  origin  of  these  people  will  probably 
never  be  known.  The  fabled  Atlantis  which  afforded  a 
passage  across  what  is  now  a  wide  waste  of  waters,  where 
there  are  but  a  few  scattered  islands — the  tops  of  what 
must  have  been  the  high  mountains  of  this  now  submerged 
continent — may  be  more  than  a  mere  hypothesis,  and  its 
counterpart  in  the  Pacific  may  give  the  real  explanation  of 
the  origin  of  all  these  Indian  hordes  that  in  some  dim  age 
of  the  past,  swept  up  from  the  south  and  west  and  left 


284  WEBSTER  E.    BROWNING 

in  the  various  stages  of  their  journey  the  monoliths  and 
temples  which  are  today  the  mute  evidences  of  their  engi- 
neering skill  and  of  their  social  organization.  All  through 
South  America,  among  the  native  tribes  there  persists  a 
tradition  of  some  great  Antarctic  movement  in  which  the 
tribes  gradually  trekked  northward,  and  the  pre-Incan  ruins 
of  Tiahuanacu,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Titicaca,  and  those  of 
Machu-Pichu,  in  the  interior  of  Peru,  may  be  accredited 
to  these  succeeding  waves  of  immigration,  the  outward 
edges  of  which  reached  over  into  what  are  now  Colombia 
and  Venezuela  and  thus  extended  on  to  the  north  and  west 
in  the  order  we  have  seen. 

The  existence  of  an  advanced  civilization  in  the  regions 
noted,  all  of  which  is  or  has  been  tropical,  and  the  absence 
of  proofs  of  an  equal  development  to  the  north  or  south, 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  "curse  of  the  tropics"  was 
not  so  potent  in  bygone  ages  as  it  is  supposed  to  be  today. 
No  Indian  nation  has  left  such  monuments  in  colder  regions, 
and  those  who  lived  on  the  fringes  of  this  advanced  civili- 
zation seem  to  have  been,  at  least  in  a  measure,  subservient 
or  inferior  tribes  who  have  left  no  record  of  their  impact  on 
world  life. 

Today  the  descendants  of  these  same  Indians  constitute 
one  of  the  most  serious  problems  of  the  Central  American 
statesman  who  goes  below  the  surface  and  faces  the  future 
of  his  race.  This  native  population  is  the  great,  seemingly 
inexhaustible,  reservoir  on  which  continuous  drafts  are  be- 
ing drawn  to  replenish  and  strengthen  the  mixed  or  Creole 
population.  It  is  the  healthy,  vigorous  strain  of  the  tribes 
of  the  hinterland  that  must  strengthen  the  worn-out  and 
often  diseased  blood  of  the  dweller  in  the  city,  and  thicken 
that  of  the  coast  dweller  which  has  been  thinned  by  tropical 
heat  and  debilitated  by  constant  sieges  of  paludic  and  other 
even  more  destructive  fevers.  Unless  the  sources  are  kept 
pure  and  clean  the  whole  stream  will  necessarily  become  pol- 
luted and  the  doom  of  the  Central  American  races  will  be 
sealed. 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS  285 

CLIMATE 

Central  America,  like  Mexico,  has  for  the  most  part,  the 
advantages  that  arise  from  a  climate  that,  in  a  given  region, 
is  practically  stable.  Along  the  coast,  on  either  side,  runs 
the  tierra  caliente  where  every  known  tropical  fruit  may  be 
produced.  The  land  is  fertile  and  requires  but  little  culti- 
vation. Banana  plantations  have  reached  a  high  degree  of 
development,  under  the  fostering  care  of  the  United  Fruit 
Company  and  similar  corporations,  along  the  coast,  and  the 
coffee  berry  which  grows  on  the  slopes  of  the  interior  pla- 
teaus, is  rarely  excelled  in  quality  and  flavor.  Cane  planta- 
tions and  cattle  ranches  stud  the  coast  line  and  the  latter 
extend  up  into  the  higher  regions  of  the  interior,  while  fine 
woods,  among  them  mahogany  and  rosewood,  abound  in 
the  forests  and  form  an  as  yet  almost  virgin  treasure  of 
these  lands. 

The  bulk  of  the  European  population  has  naturally  sought 
the  high  cool  plateaus  of  the  interior,  in  the  tierra  templada, 
and  the  city  of  Panamd  is  the  only  Central  American  capi- 
tal situated  on  the  coast.  Guatemala  City  is  almost  5000 
feet  above  the  sea,  thus  resembling  Bogotd  and  the  City 
of  Mexico  in  climate  and  general  conditions  of  life,  though 
both  these  capitals  are  higher.  The  different  countries  are 
divided  into  what  might  be  called  cantons  by  mountain 
ranges  and  pestiferous  swamps,  and  this  has  no  doubt 
influenced  the  ethnological  development  of  the  native  pop- 
ulations, dividing  them  into  small  tribes,  each  with  its  own 
dialect  or  language,  customs  and  religion. 

SOCIAL  CASTES  AND  CONDITIONS 

The  population  of  Central  America  naturally  divides  it- 
self, as  in  all  Latin  American  countries,  into  three  great 
social  castes  or  classes.  First  of  all  there  is  the  Indian  of 
the  hinterland,  to  whom  reference  has  already  been  made. 
Slightly  above  him  in  social  standing  is  the  ladino,  or  Creole, 
of  mixed  blood,  who  occupies  an  intermediary  position  be- 
tween the  pure  white  or  European  population  and  the  mass 
of  Indian  laborers  who  are  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the 


286  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

drawers  of  water.  Though  for  the  most  part  artisans,  and 
generally  of  a  humble  social  category,  some  have  reached 
positions  of  influence,  have  become  prominent  in  political 
life,  or  even  occupied  the  seat  of  the  President  and  made 
their  voices  heard  in  the  legislative  halls.  The  pure  white 
population  is  often  a  negligible  quantity  numerically  and 
tends  to  disappear  through  absorption  by  the  lower  classes. 
The  women  of  this  class,  in  particular,  are  the  stay  of  the 
Church,  while  the  men,  openly  non-religious,  if  not  even 
anti-church  in  their  sentiment,  generally  turn  to  political 
interests  or  give  themselves  to  literary  pursuits  which  are 
seldom  remunerative  but  are  supposed  to  insure  high  stand- 
ing in  the  community.  In  Central  America  to  a  degree 
unknown  in  some  of  the  states  further  south,  the  fact  of 
humble  origin  is  not  necessarily  a  bar  to  political  prefer- 
ence, nor  to  admission  to  the  exclusive  social  circles  of  the 
high-born.  This  social  chasm  which  yawns  between  the 
classes  is  more  often  crossed  on  a  bridge  of  gold,  yet  talent 
and  industry  are  coming  to  be  recognized  for  their  own 
worth  and  national  life  thereby  deepened  and  strengthened. 

ECONOMIC  CONDITIONS 

Aside  from  what  has  been  done  by  foreign  capital,  it  may 
be  said  that  but  little  economic  progress  has  been  made  in 
Latin  America.  Panamd  in  particular  depends  on  the 
United  States  not  only  for  its  political  independence  but 
also  for  its  economic  life.  The  tremendous  business  carried 
on  by  the  administration  of  the  Canal  Zone  in  the  immedi- 
ate vicinity  of  the  two  principal  cities  of  the  republic,  with 
its  thousands  of  employees,  insures  a  constant  and  alto- 
gether lucrative  return  on  funds  invested  by  the  commer- 
cial community;  but  the  natural  resources  of  the  country 
have  been  but  very  slightly  exploited,  and  in  the  few  cases 
that  form  an  exception,  by  foreigners.  In  the  other  repub- 
lics the  landed  proprietors  belong,  generally,  to  the  old 
aristocracy,  many  of  whose  families  received  their  grant  of 
land  from  the  crown  itself,  and  have  held  it  through  suc- 
cessive changes  of  government,  since  its  possession  consti- 


CENTRAL   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  287 

tutes  not  only  potential  wealth  but  also  social  standing  and 
prerogatives.  But  the  development  of  these  fiefs  depends 
very  largely  on  foreign  capital,  particularly  the  construction 
of  railways  to  the  coast  and  the  transportation  by  sea  to 
foreign  markets.  The  Central  American  governments  have 
given  but  little  attention  to  the  increase  in  the  ways  of 
communication  except  in  the  granting  of  concessions  to 
foreign  capitalists.  Yet  few  centers  in  the  world  have 
greater  natural  resources  and  the  time  cannot  be  far  distant 
when  these  republics  under  stable  governments  will  come 
into  their  own. 

With  the  passing  of  dictators,  who  are  an  anachronism 
in  modern  life,  and  the  exercise  of  the  unobstructed  right  of 
suffrage  by  the  peoples,  Central  America  cannot  fail  to  take 
a  position  of  large  economic  importance  among  the  nations. 

In  spite  of  the  physical  handicaps  of  a  tropical  climate;  a 
heterogeneous  and  often  nondescript  population,  in  which 
the  very  dregs  of  humanity  seem  to  have  left  an  indelible 
mark,  especially  in  the  coast  regions;  the  earthquakes  which 
frequently  wreck  the  cities,  and  the  volcanoes  which  hurl 
cinders  and  lava  over  the  surrounding  country — often  cov- 
ering it  to  a  depth  of  many  feet  and  blotting  out  thousands 
of  lives  and  destroying  valuable  property — the  people  of 
Central  America  have  most  attractive  qualities,  in  common 
with  the  other  Latin  American  nations,  have  shown  a  high 
standard  of  intellectual  and  executive  ability,  and,  under 
good  governments,  ought  to  forge  rapidly  ahead  and  fulfill 
their  real  destiny.  The  United  States  through  the  invest- 
ment of  capital,  especially  in  the  opening  up  of  interstate 
and  international  communication  both  by  land  and  by  sea 
could  do  real  service  to  Central  America  and  at  the  same 
time  reap  enormous  returns  on  the  investment. 

An  interesting  illustration  of  the  difficulties  inherent  in 
communication  with  the  various  Central  American  states, 
is  found  in  the  route  usually  preferred  by  those  who  would 
go  from  Guatemala,  the  northernmost  republic,  to  Panamd, 
at  the  extreme  south  of  the  Isthmus.  Instead  of  simply 
going  down  to  the  Pacific  port  of  San  Jose  and  thence 
shipping  direct  to  Balboa,  the  quickest  as  well  as  the  most 


288  WEBSTER   E.    BROWNING 

comfortable  route  is  that  which  leads  down  to  Puerto 
Barrios  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  There  the  traveler  takes 
the  United  Fruit  Company's  boat  to  New  Orleans  and 
then  transships  to  a  steamer  of  the  same  line  for  Cristobal. 
Or,  to  give  another  illustration;  if  a  letter  is  mailed  in  Den- 
ver or  even  San  Francisco,  addressed  to  a  resident  of  Mana- 
gua, the  capital  of  Nicaragua,  it  is  not  sent  directly  down 
the  west  coast,  but,  instead,  by  rail  to  New  Orleans,  thence 
by  boat  to  Panamd  and,  finally,  up  the  west  coast  to  Corinto, 
the  port  of  the  capital.  In  the  usual  course  of  events  a 
letter  could  be  sent  from  San  Francisco  to  Hong  Kong  or 
Tokyo,  or  from  New  York  to  Cairo  or  Constantinople,  in 
less  tune,  and  with  considerably  more  certainty  of  its  safe 
delivery,  than  to  Managua  or  to  Tegucigalpa. 

The  prompt  completion  of  the  Panama  railway  from  the 
frontiers  of  Mexico  to  Panama,  with  the  corresponding 
national  lines  running  down  to  the  ports  in  the  various 
countries,  would  be  one  of  the  most  helpful  contributions 
to  the  solution  of  the  economic  and  social  problems  of  Cen- 
tral America.  Intercommunications  would  thus  be  made 
easy,  the  rich  and  abundant  products  of  the  various  coun- 
tries would  quickly  and  economically  find  an  outlet  to  the 
sea,  and,  what  is  of  even  greater  importance,  especially  in 
view  of  the  proposed  Federal  union,  the  people  of  the  dif- 
ferent nationalities  would  come  to  know  each  other  better, 
jealousy  and  intrigue  would  tend  to  disappear  and  the  dream 
of  Central  American  statesmen  of  a  single  strong  political 
entity  lying  between  Mexico  and  South  America  would  be 
much  nearer  its  realization. 

PUBLIC  INSTRUCTION 

Statistics  in  the  Department  of  Public  Instruction  are  on 
the  whole  incomplete  and  unsatisfactory,  yet  show,  even  in 
the  best  of  cases,  the  need  of  prodigious  endeavor  on  the 
part  of  the  Central  American  peoples  if  they  are  to  put 
this  exceedingly  important  function  of  the  governments  on 
a  proper  basis. 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  289 

Nicaragua,  for  example,  where  instruction  is  almost  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  the  church,  and  a  country  which  has 
never  erected  a  building  for  school  purposes  in  all  its  his- 
tory, is  cited  as  having  a  total  of  366  public  and  private 
schools,  including  all  those  of  primary  and  secondary  grade. 
The  state  offers  no  secondary  instruction,  but  has  three 
universities  and  a  number  of  normal  schools.  The  annual 
budget  is  $310,000.  Counting  the  population  at  one-half 
million,  this  means  an  annual  per  capita  tax  of  about  sixty 
cents  for  all  departments  of  instruction,  or  a  total  about 
equal  to  the  budget  of  one  of  our  smaller  colleges — such  as 
Berea,  in  Kentucky — or  one-tenth  the  annual  income  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.1  And  this  for  an 
entire  nation! 

Costa  Rica  reports  419  elementary  and  2  high  schools, 
with  a  total  attendance  of  32,576  pupils.  There  is  also  a 
normal  school  and  a  university  with  four  faculties. 

Honduras  has  584  primary  public  schools,  a  national 
institute,  a  University  with  four  faculties,  and  the  educa- 
tional budget  in  1918  amounted  to  $385,000. 

Salvador  in  1916  reported  989  primary  schools  with  1476 
teachers  and  57,555  enrolled  pupils;  27  higher  schools,  in- 
cluding 3  technical  and  3  normal  schools,  with  a  total  of 
2345  pupils,  and  a  national  university  with  five  faculties. 

Panamd,  in  1917  maintained  398  public  schools,  through- 
out the  8  provinces,  with  a  total  attendance  of  22,000  pupils 
under  315  teachers.2 

The  average  illiteracy  for  all  Central  America,  although 
exact  statistics  are  silent  on  this  point,  cannot  be  less  than 
75  per  cent  of  the  entire  population,  as  compared  with  7.7 
in  the  United  States,  and  the  combined  educational  budget 
for  all  Central  America,  with  its  population  of  over  5,000,000, 
cannot  exceed  one  half  that  of  Harvard  or  Yale  University 
for  a  single  year. 

The  statistics  for  Guatemala  are  more  complete  and  for 
the  school  year  of  1918  are  as  follows.  There  are  reported 

1  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1917,  p.  47. 
1  (The  above  statistics  are  taken  from  The  Statesman's  Year  Book,  for 
1919.) 


290  WEBSTER   E.    BROWNING 

1642  primary  schools,  with  a  total  matriculation  of  41,162 
pupils;  two  normal  schools,  one  for  each  of  the  sexes,  with 
226  students  enrolled;  schools  of  commerce  and  of  a  similar 
character,  212;  and  in  the  university,  57  students  in  phar- 
macy and  natural  sciences;  158  in  medicine  and  surgery; 
and  110  in  the  faculty  of  law  and  political  and  social  sci- 
ences. At  the  close  of  the  year  11  were  graduated  in  law, 
12  in  medicine  and  surgery,  3  as  dentists,  3  as  mid  wives,  3 
as  nurses,  and  4  as  pharmacists.  Counting  the  population 
at  2,000,000  the  above  figures  would  give  roughly  speaking, 
one  primary  school  for  every  1200  persons,  and  one  pupil 
for  every  50  inhabitants.  In  the  secondary  or  high  school 
there  is  but  one  pupil  for  every  8500  inhabitants,  and  but 
one  university  graduate  for  every  87,000  inhabitants. 
Moreover  in  the  estimation  of  eminent  Guatemalans  who 
were  not  in  sympathy  with  the  government  of  the  now  over- 
thrown dictator,  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera,  there  is 
much  that  might  be  said  as  to  optimism  of  the  above  sta- 
tistics, as  also  of  the  equipment  and  methods  of  teaching. 
The  " college"  as  understood  in  the  United  States,  is  un- 
known in  Central  America,  as  in  all  Latin  America,  and  the 
university  receives  its  students  direct  from  the  secondary 
schools,  supplying  in  its  lengthened  program  the  courses 
they  could  not  receive  before  entering.  The  " university," 
too,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  a  different  concept  in  the 
mind  of  the  Latin  American  and  generally  centers  around 
some  one  building  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  sans  campus, 
sans  student  life  and  activities,  and  sans  most  of  the  other 
component  parts  of  our  somewhat  complex  university 
organization. 

RECENT  POPULAR  UPRISINGS 

While  Central  America  has  always  been  a  prolific  center 
of  political  uprisings,  these  movements  have,  in  the  main, 
been  military  and  fomented  by  pretenders  to  executive 
authority  who,  in  some  way  or  another,  had  been  able  to 
secure  a  following  and  overturn  the  one  in  power.  An  indi- 
cation of  a  salutary  change  in  methods  of  administration 
is  the  evidently  increasing  power  of  the  people  and  their 


CENTRAL   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  291 

influence  on  the  choice  of  the  nation's  executive.  This  may 
be  evidenced  by  recent  developments  in  Costa  Rica,  and  more 
particularly  by  the  recent  overthrow  of  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada 
Cabrera,  in  Guatemala,  after  22  years  of  autocratic  rule  of 
that  country.  This  occurred  during  the  writer's  visit  to 
that  country  and  evidently  was  the  result  of  a  great  popu- 
lar uprising  rather  than  of  the  machinations  of  another 
aspirant  to  power.  The  streets  of  the  capital,  for  many  days 
before  the  declaration  by  the  Assembly,  that  resulted  in 
the  resignation  of  Estrada  Cabrera,  were  filled  with  throngs 
of  determined  citizens,  who,  in  an  orderly  but  energetic 
manner,  manifested  their  hatred  of  the  old  order  of  govern- 
ment and  their  desire  for  a  more  democratic  regime.  Un- 
biased observers  declared  that  at  least  90  per  cent  of  the 
thinking  people  of  Guatemala  were  behind  the  movement 
that  finally  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  the  so-called  con- 
stitutional president,  but  who  was  in  practice  a  Dictator, 
and  the  appointment  of  his  successor. 

The  steps  by  which  this  was  brought  about  were  interest- 
ing and  deserve  perpetuation  in  the  records  of  history,  as 
showing  a  distinct  advance  in  revolutionary  methods. 
Urged  on  by  the  people,  through  its  representatives,  the 
Assembly,  on  April  8,  made  public  the  following  decree: 

LEGISLATIVE  POWER 
» 

DECREE  NUMBER  1022 

The  National  Legislative  Assembly  of  the  Republic  of  Guate- 
mala, 

WHEREAS:  The  documents  which  in  our  possession  duly  estab- 
lish the  mental  alteration  of  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  by  which  he  is  rendered  incompetent  to 
continue  as  the  Executive,  and  in  order  that  he  may  attend  to 
the  re-establishment  of  his  health,  in  conformity  with  Article  52, 
paragraphs  VII  and  VIII,  and  68  of  the  Constitutional  Law, 

THEREFORE : 
IT  is  DECREED: 

Article  I.  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera  is  separated  from  his 
position  as  President  of  the  Republic  and  is  given  permission  to 
absent  himself  from  the  territory  of  Central  America. 


292  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

Article  II.  The  supreme  power  shall  be  given  over  into  the 
hands  of  the  citizen  who  is  named  for  this  purpose  by  the  Assembly. 

Article  III.  While  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera  is  in  the 
country  he  will  be  given  the  honors  corresponding  to  the  high 
position  which  he  had  held  and  he  is  guaranteed  by  the  people 
full  exercise  of  all  his  rights. 

The  same  number  of  El  Guatemalteco,  the  "official  daily 
bulletin  of  the  Republic  of  Guatemala,"  published  the 
decree  by  which  his  successor  in  the  presidential  office  was 
named,  and  runs  as  follows : 

DECREE  NUMBER  1023 

The  National  Assembly  of  the  Republic  of  Guatemala, 

WHEREAS  :  On  this  date  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera  has  been 
separated  from  the  exercise  of  the  Executive  Power, 

AND  WHEREAS,  the  person  should  be  named  who  must  succeed 
him  in  that  high  position, 

THEREFORE,  in  conformity  with  that  which  is  decreed  in  Article 
52,  paragraph  VIII,  of  the  Constitution, 

IT  is  DECREED: 

That  citizen  Carlos  Herrera  is  named  Constitutional  President 
of  the  Republic  in  substitution  for  Dr.  Manuel  Estrada  Cabrera. 

It  may  be  added  here  that  these  decrees  did  not  bring  the 
desired  result  without  the  spilling  of  blood,  although  the 
people  were  hoping  that  the  revolution  might  be  bloodless. 
The  dictator,  from  his  forts  on  the  hills  above  the  city, 
bombarded  the  defenseless  population,  for  six  days,  with 
interruptions,  and  many  lives  were  lost.  But  the  move- 
ment, inasmuch  as  it  was  of  the  people  and  by  the  people, 
did  not  waver  and  on  April  14  an  armistice  was  signed  by 
the  terms  of  which  Estrada  Cabrera  became  a  prisoner  and 
the  new  government  came  into  power. 

REVIVAL  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  TOWARD  UNION 

An  interesting  phase  in  the  recent  revolution  in  Guate- 
mala is  the  attempt  by  the  "  Unionist  Party,"  now  in  power, 
to  revive  interest  in  the  federation  of  the  Central  American 
States  under  one  flag  and  one  government.  As  illustrating 
the  sentiment  of  this  party,  which  now  represents  the 


CENTRAL   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  293 

people  in  its  executive  capacity,  the  Preamble  to  a  decree 
which  the  National  Legislative  Assembly  was  asked  to 
promulgate,  will  be  of  interest.  Translated  from  the  some- 
what florid  original  into  our  colder  and  less  tropical  tongue, 
it  reads  as  follows: 

The  historic  moment  is  definite  and  should  be  taken  advantage 
of.  A  century  of  shameful  separation,  internal  revolts,  calamities 
and  mistakes,  have  not  been  sufficient  to  quench  the  flame  of 
union  among  the  Central  Americans.  Far  otherwise,  the  people 
rise  above  the  sorrowful  reality  to  a  higher  ideal  of  Justice  and 
Right,  of  aggrandizement  and  progress,  does  not  bend  under  the 
weight  of  misfortune,  refuses  to  accept  the  dictates  of  adversity, 
hits  up  its  countenance  and  demands  union  because  it  does  not 
wish  to  be  consumed  by  impotence. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  sorrowful  spectacle  of  our  political 
disintegration  disappear,  that  we  direct  our  gaze  toward  the 
greatest  and  highest  ends  of  existence,  and  fulfilling  the  ideals 
bequeathed  us  by  past  generations,  bring  it  about  that  Central 
America  be  reborn,  free,  sovereign,  independent  and  worthy  of 
taking  its  place  by  the  side  of  the  great  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  unity  of  the  old  Central  American  territory  is  a  necessity 
that  is  felt  by  all  and  desired  by  all.  The  political  clubs,  whether 
they  are  Unionist  or  Liberal  in  affiliation,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  the  country,  with  no  distinction  whatever,  desire  it  and  hope 
that  the  centenary  of  our  independence  be  acclaimed  in  the  five 
republics  by  the  flag  of  1821.  By  the  fathers  of  the  Independence, 
by  those  who  fought  for  the  noble  idea  of  a  united  country,  by 
the  blood  spilled  to  bring  about  this  desire  of  all  Central  America, 
by  our  love  to  the  races  from  which  we  have  sprung,  by  our  marvel- 
ous geographic  position,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  national 
sentiment,  now  profoundly  stirred  and  vibrant,  we  beg  you  to 
give  life  to  this  ideal  of  a  Union  and  that  you  promulgate  the 
following  decree : 

"The  National  Legislative  Assembly  of  Guatemala  proclaims 
the  Union  of  Central  America;  protects  and  sustains  all  endeavor 
directed  toward  securing  it  in  a  peaceful  manner. 

"To  that  end,  it  convokes  the  other  States  in  a  Constituent 
Central  American  Assembly,  to  be  formed  by  fifteen  individuals 
from  each  State,  elected  by  the  people  under  conditions  of  the 
most  ample  liberty  and  independence  of  action,  who  shall  meet 
in  the  City  of  Guatemala,  on  the  first  day  of  April,  1920,  for  the 
purpose  of  choosing  the  city  which  shall  serve  as  the  seat  of  their 
deliberations,  decree  the  Political  Constitution  of  the  Republic 
of  Central  America,  and  designate  its  Capital  and  the  seat  of  its 
legislative  and  executive  power. 

"Anyone  who  may  declare  himself  as  against  this  Union  or 
who  may  oppose  its  work  or  embarrass  it  in  any  way  whatever, 
shall  be  held  to  be  a  traitor  to  the  ideals  of  the  country  and  both 


294  WEBSTER  E.    BROWNING 

unworthy  and  incapable  of  holding  any  public  office  or  employ- 
ment. 

"To  you,  the  members  of  Congress,  corresponds  the  glory  of 
proclaiming  that  which  for  many  years  has  been  our  fervent  desire, 
the  sentiment  of  our  race,  the  highest  of  our  ideals,  and  we  hope 
that,  not  one  or  two,  but  all  of  you  may  favor  this  motion." 

This  decree  was  presented  to  the  National  Legislative 
Assembly  on  March  1,  1920,  but  has  not,  as  yet,  been  acted 
upon.  Inasmuch  as  this  party  is  now  in  power,  it  will  be 
interesting  to  see  how  far  they  will  be  able  to  carry  out  this 
very  laudable  project  of  a  great  federated  Central  American 
republic.  It  would  be  a  great  triumph  for  modern  democ- 
racy, a  long  step  forward  in  the  progress  of  the  nations, 
of  the  western  hemisphere,  could  these  five  republics  lay 
aside  private  and  personal  jealousies  and  ambitions  and, 
interested  only  in  making  of  Central  America  a  place  "safe 
for  democracy,"  unite  their  interests  and  purposes  through 
the  formation  of  one  strong  state  whose  influence  would 
weigh  heavily  in  the  Councils  of  the  modern  world. 

That  some  of  their  own  eminent  statesmen  are  thinking 
of  the  formation  of  one  or  more  strong  Latin  American 
nations,  through  the  union  or  federation  of  some  of  the 
smaller  and  sometimes  defenseless  peoples,  is  evidenced 
by  the  recent  words  of  a  Mexican  jurist.3  He  said,  in  part: 

The  Latin  American  countries  have  developed  without  fixed 
purpose,  essaying  all  kinds  of  government  without  finding  any 
form  that  satisfies  them.  They  have  passed  alternately  from 
tyranny  to  something  very  near  anarchy,  before  arriving  at 
democracy.  An  immense  self-love  has  made  each  one  of  these 
small  nations  believe  themselves  entitled  to  figure  as  a  power  of 
the  first  order.  Each  one  of  them  believes  that  its  artists,  its 
scientists,  its  army  and  navy  are  not  surpassed  by  any  other 
nation.  They  have  confounded  love  of  country  with  love  of 
power. 

What  is  the  future  of  these  countries?  Will  it  be  possible  for 
any  of  them  to  become  truly  great  powers?  While  they  live  as 
they  are  living?  No. 

Already  out  of  the  tropic  of  Capricorn  have  issued  two  nation- 
alities which,  including  Brazil,  are  those  of  greatest  vitality,  the 
greatest  vigor  and  the  greatest  future — the  Argentine  Republic 

1  The  Future  of  the  Latin  American  Republics,  by  R.  de  Zayas  Enri- 
quez,  in  La  Nueva  Democracia,  quoted  in  New  York  Times,  May  10,  1920. 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  295 

and  Chile.  They  are  two  rival  countries  today;  the  lofty  wall 
of  the  Andes  divides  them,  but  the  railroad,  the  viaduct  and  the 
tunnel  overcome  the  obstacles  raised  by  nature.  Law  will  over- 
come the  obstacle  created  by  the  character  of  both  countries. 
Chile,  essentially  a  mining  country;  Argentina,  essentially  agri- 
cultural, both  with  great  industrial  possibilities,  are  complete  in 
themselves.  Merged  into  a  single  nationality  they  could  become 
great. 

These  expansions  (resulting  from  the  merging  of  these  countries) 
appear  rational,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  they  will  be  realized, 
either  by  means  of  treaties  formed  through  foresight  or  else  by 
wars,  imposed  by  necessity,  unless  the  threatened  nations,  which 
would  be  absorbed  in  the  expansion,  Mexico  included,  should 
change  their  tactics. 

Within  a  very  few  years  there  will  be  no  reason  for  the  small 
nations  to  exist;  the  present  century  will  see  them  disappear 
completely,  at  all  events  in  Europe  and  America,  because  they 
serve  only  as  a  hindrance  to  the  progress  of  humanity. 

If  in  Europe  certain  small  powers  have  survived,  it  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  great  nations  have  protected  and  maintained 
them,  under  the  pretext  of  preserving  Continental  equilibrium. 

The  nation  that  sleeps,  trusting  in  right,  in  agreements  and 
altruism,  will  have  a  tragic  awakening,  finding  itself  chained  to 
the  chariot  wheels  of  the  conqueror. 

History  shows  that  countries,  in  order  to  be  self-respecting  must 
be  strong  and  prudent,  but  above  all  strong.  Thus  it  is  that  the 
Spanish  American  nations  must  succeed  in  making  themselves 
strong  at  any  cost  and  this  they  will  not  be  able  to  do,  except  by 
means  of  democracy,  which  unites  all  the  inhabitants  in  a  common 
aspiration  and  a  community  of  interests.  To  say,  for  example, 
"Mexico  for  the  Mexicans,"  "Cuba  for  the  Cubans,"  shows  lack 
of  practical  sense.  The  modern  doctrine  is  "The  World  for 
Humanity."  , 

The  above  words,  spoken  by  a  Latin  American,  apply 
with  special  cogency  to  the  small  and  now  disunited  nations 
of  Central  America,  and  might  well  be  pondered  by  their 
statesmen. 


ATTITUDE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA  IN  CENTRAL 

AMERICA 

The  future  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the  peoples  of 
Central  America  is  very  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States.  This  is  admittedly  so,  both 
because  the  United  States  is  the  strongest  nation  in  the 
western  hemisphere  and  because  of  the  geographical  situa- 


296  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

tion.  And  it  must  be  confessed  that  our  diplomatic  atti- 
tude in  the  past,  as  regards  all  Latin  America,  leads  some 
of  us  to  suspect  that  there  may  be  misapprehension  and 
misunderstanding  in  the  future.  We  do  not  seem  to  have 
learned,  as  yet,  that  our  duty  is  not  limited  to  taking  all 
we  can  out  of  Latin  America,  but  that  we  have  also  an 
obligation  to  put  something  into  it.  Not  entirely  without 
reason  have  many  Latin  Americans  labored  under  a  mis- 
apprehension as  to  the  real  contents  of  the  "  Monroe  Doc- 
trine," and  it  would  seem  that  the  time  has  come  when  we 
should  either  admit  that  it  is  an  "  obsolete  shibboleth,"  or, 
giving  it  the  proper  interpretation,  make  it  a  real  "American 
Doctrine,"  to  whose  defense  every  Latin  American  nation, 
from  giant  Brazil  to  the  comparatively  pigmy  Panama^ 
would  instantly  rally. 

On  this  point  it  may  be  well  to  quote  and  ponder  the 
words  of  another  Latin  American  statesman,  uttered  within 
the  last  few  weeks,  as  showing  how  the  chief  magistrate  of 
one  of  the  most  advanced  nations  to  the  south  of  us  con- 
siders the  formation  of  such  a  league.  Dr.  Brum,  Presi- 
dent of  Uruguay,  in  an  address  before  the  university 
students  in  the  capital  of  his  country  said,  referring  to 
this  League  which  he  had  proposed: 

Owing  to  the  state  in  which  European  countries  remain  after 
the  struggle,  it  may  be  said  that  fear  of  invasion  by  them  in 
America  has  been  removed  for  many  years.  But  is  that  sufficient 
reason  for  us  to  take  no  interest  in  the  future  and  turn  away 
from  the  Monroe  Doctrine  with  the  pretext  it  is  now  unnecessary? 
I  believe  that  today,  more  than  ever,  we  should  use  foresight  in 
searching  for  formulas  that  may  assure  forever  the  peace  and  full 
independence  of  American  countries. 

The  principle  of  American  solidarity,  based  on  the  constitution 
of  a  continental  league,  is  more  ample  than  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
because  it  will  not  only  defend  the  countries  of  America  against 
foreign  invaders  but  also  against  imperialistic  tendencies  which 
might  arise  among  themselves. 

The  formation  of  this  league,  in  my  opinion,  would  be  a  logical 
consequence  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  which,  in  recognizing 
and  expressly  accepting  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  seems  to  be  desirous 
of  limiting  its  field  of  action,  so  far  as  American  affairs  are  con- 
cerned. On  the  other  hand,  the  Supreme  Council  of  the  League 
of  Nations  is  composed  principally  of  the  delegates  of  the  Great 
Powers,  nearly  all  the  American  countries  having  been  excluded. 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  297 

These  countries  need,  therefore,  to  create  a  powerful  organization 
to  look  after  their  interests  in  the  decisions  arrived  at  by  the 
League  of  Nations.  Harmonious  and  joint  action  by  the  "Ameri- 
can League"  would  avoid  European  intervention  in  our  affairs. 

The  policy  of  the  United  States  in  Latin  America  in  the 
past  has  been  largely  opportunist  when,  on  the  contrary, 
it  should  have  been  well-defined,  well-understood  and  ener- 
getically enforced.  With  not  little  reason  have  the  states- 
men of  these  countries  considered  our  methods  as  vacil- 
lating and  calculated  to  favor  this  or  that  party  or  individual 
which  might  be  expected  to  do  the  most  in  return.  A 
recent  writer,  referring  to  the  overthrow  of  Estrada  Cabrera 
in  Guatemala  has  voiced  this  feeling.  He  said: 

The  whole  Cabrera  episode  probably  will  go  down  in  history 
as  a  rather  unsavory  interlude  in  our  diplomacy  in  Latin  America. 
Cabrera  stood  for  everything  which  President  Taft  and  President 
Wilson  professed  not  to  stand  for;  he  represented  iron  force  as 
much  as  the  Kaiser;  he  laughed  at  the  doctrine  of  self-determina- 
tion; he  exploited  his  country;  it  has  been  changed  to  his  advan- 
tage; he  believed  in  stark  militarism.  Yet  President  Taft's 
administration  tolerated  him  and  Mr.  Wilson's  gave  him  eager 
regard  in  return  for  his  gesture  in  declaring  war  on  Germany  and 
his  truckling  to  our  policy  in  Mexico  and  Central  America.  His 
fall  is  a  distinct  feather  in  the  cap  of  President  Carranza  of  Mexico, 
whose  inveterate  foe  he  was.4 

And  another,  speaking  of  the  intervention  of  the  United 
States  in  Nicaragua,  and  writing  while  still  in  that  country 
and  with  the  actual  conditions  fresh  in  his  mind,  says : 

In  spite  of  all  the  abuses  of  the  Zelaya  administration,  which 
the  United  States  threw  out,  much  attention  was  paid  by  it  to 
public  instruction.  But  as  soon  as  the  Conservative  Party,  pro- 
tected by  the  United  States,  was  put  into  power,  they  began  to 
bring  into  the  country  the  Jesuits,  Christian  Brothers,  Capuchinos 
and  other  religious  orders,  and  to  give  them  charge  of  the  schools. 
At  present  practically  the  whole  of  public  instruction  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  Church.  They  cannot  understand  why  the  United 
States  government  is  working  against  itself,  by  protecting  the 
Conservatives  in  office  while  they  encourage  the  Church  in  every 
way  and  the  Church,  in  turn,  is  giving  itself  to  a  constant  cam- 
paign of  prejudicing  the  people  against  Americans  as  heretics 
whom  all  good  Catholics  should  oppose.5 

4  The  New  York  Globe,  quoted  in  The  Literary  Digest,  May  1,    1920. 
6  Travel  letter,  S.  G.  Inman,  from  Managua,  April  12,  1920. 


298  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

The  day  has  passed  when  the  diplomacy  of  force  can  be 
advantageously  applied  south  of  the  Rio  Grande.  It  has 
sometimes  given  more  immediate  results  than  might  other- 
wise have  been  secured,  but  it  has  never  been  moral  or 
Christian,  and  consequently  has  failed  in  the  end.  No 
better  policy  could  be  adopted  by  the  United  States  in  its 
relations  with  the  Latin  American  nations,  and  particularly 
with  those  of  Central  America,  which  are  our  near  neigh- 
bors, and  largely  dependent  on  our  good  will,  than  the 
principle  enunciated  centuries  ago  by  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  thinkers,  "  whosoever  would  become  great  among 
you,  let  him  become  your  minister,  and  whosoever  would 
be  first  among  you  shall  be  your  servant." 

A  PROGRAM  OF  SERVICE 

That  a  very  large  portion  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  thinking  of  Central  America  in  terms  of  service 
is  evidenced  by  the  recent  celebration  in  Guatemala  City 
of  a  Conference  between  representatives  of  the  various 
boards  which  have  mission  work  in  Central  America,  and 
the  setting  up  by  them  of  a  cooperative  program,  which 
when  carried  out,  cannot  fail  to  intensify  friendly  relations 
between  these  nations.  In  no  sectarian  spirit,  but  with 
altogether  disinterested  and  altruistic  intentions,  it  is  pro- 
posed to  aid  the  various  governments  through  the  extension 
of  primary  and  secondary  instruction;  the  establishing  of 
a  model  Normal  school,  industrial  schools,  especially  among 
the  now  neglected  Indian  population,  and  a  training  school 
for  nurses,  all  of  which  will  converge  in  a  Union  College  to 
be  located  in  Panamd  and  which  will  serve  the  intellectual 
interests  not  only  of  Central  America  but  also  of  the  nearby 
South  American  republics.  Other  institutions  are  also 
planned,  as  a  union  Press  which  will  be  able  to  aid  in  the 
supply  of  helpful  literature;  a  hospital  in  each  of  the  coun- 
tries; help  hi  combating  the  social  evil;  care  of  the  insane; 
a  thorough  survey  of  the  Indian  population  and  a  com- 
prehensive program  for  work  among  these  neglected  people* 


CENTRAL  AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  299 

The  work  that  is  being  done  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation 
and  the  Rockefeller  Institute  is  also  thoroughly  appreciated 
by  the  people  and  is  accepted  as  evidence  of  the  desire  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  to  aid  in  the  solution  of 
Central  American  problems.  An  editorial  which  recently 
appeared  in  the  leading  daily  paper  of  one  of  the  Central 
American  capitals,  an  organ  which  reflected  the  opinion  of 
the  government,  has  admirably  expressed  the  gratitude  of 
the  people  of  that  and  neighboring  countries  for  benefits 
received  from  the  institutions  mentioned,  and  at  the  same 
time  has  enunciated  an  admirable  philosophy  of  diplomacy. 
The  writer  said : 

Rising  above  the  suspicions  which  "Dollar  Diplomacy"  and 
the  "Big  Stick"  have  aroused  in  Latin  America,  the  interest  of 
the  United  States  in  Spanish  America  has  been  shown  in  other 
important  ways  and  in  each  of  these  there  are  sufficient  noble  and 
altruistic  ideals  to  erase  jealousies  and  hatreds. 

More  important  than  political  treaties,  than  solemn  promises 
of  friendship  and  love,  than  Congresses  and  Conferences,  the 
great  cultural  endeavors  of  the  United  States  have  contributed 
to  the  drawing  together  of  the  Americas.  That  what  we  have 
stated  is  true  is  proved  by  the  great  work  done  in  all  parts  of  the 
continent  by  the  Rockefeller  Institute. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  refer  to  the  discretion  with  which  this 
work  has  been  carried  on.  No  one  is  ignorant  of  the  positive 
benefit  which  this  Institute  has  brought  to  the  country.  Its 
work  has  not  been  one-sided.  In  combating  the  hookworm,  to. 
do  which  it  has  penetrated  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  tropics, 
it  has  propagated  the  truth  concerning  public  hygiene,  everywhere. 
It  has  endeavored  to  teach  cleanliness  to  the  Indians,  the  necessity 
of  the  bath,  of  sanitation,  and  of  eating  only  healthful  foods. 
This  Institute  has  gone  from  farm  to  farm,  from  house  to  house — 
and  at  the  same  time  its  offices  in  the  cities  and  most  important 
towns  have  lost  no  opportunity  to  examine  the  sick  and  to  dis- 
tribute medicines — and  has  interested  a  great  circle  of  people 
in  its  work.  The  results  could  not  be  more  satisfactory,  as  proved 
by  the  statistics  published  by  the  Institute. 

If  the  fight  against  hookworm  provokes  our  gratitude,  of  how 
much  greater  benefit  to  the  tropical  countries  has  been  the  crusade 
against  yellow  fever.  The  work  of  Gorgas  and  others  has  no 
precedent  in  history.  In  the  saving  of  humanity  from  this  plague 
no  obstacle  has  been  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way.  Money  has 
been  poured  out  in  torrents.  The  sacrifices  have  been  multiplied 
and  the  representatives  of  the  Institute  have  gone  from  one  ex- 
treme of  the  country  to  the  other — today  in  Mexico,  tomorrow 
in  Guatemala  and  Salvador,  and  then  on  to  Ecuador,  and  they 
are  in  all  places  at  the  same  time. 


300  WEBSTER  E.   BROWNING 

The  recompense  of  their  sacrifices  and  struggles  is  to  be  found 
in  their  success,  as  in  the  discovery  of  the  manner  in  which  yellow 
fever  may  be  prevented. 

This  is  the  spirit  that  will  bind  the  two  Americas  together 
with  bonds  that  cannot  be  severed — the  spirit  of  service 
rendered  by  the  strong  to  those  who  are  weak.  And  in 
this  spirit  of  neighborliness,  in  this  attitude  of  mental  and 
spiritual  hospitality,  there  is  to  be  found  the  true  solution 
of  our  common  economic  problems,  the  root  of  all  true 
diplomacy. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  NATIONS  OF  THE 
CARIBBEAN 

By  Jacinto  Lopez,  Editor  of  "La  Reforma  Social;"  author 

11  The  War  on  the  Pacific"  and  many  essays  on 

American  and  International  Questions 

The  subject  matter  assigned  to  me  easily  lends  itself  to 
an  extensive  and  elaborate  discourse  on  the  geographical, 
historical  and  political  aspects  of  the  relation  of  the  United 
States  to  the  Caribbean  Sea.  But  this  would  not  meet 
my  purpose.  In  coming  to  this  conference,  I  have  a  more 
impersonal  and  far  reaching  interest.  I  have  come  here 
to  make  a  faithful  exposition  of  facts  and  to  state  a  few 
plain  truths  in  connection  with  a  question  which  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  for  the  destinies  of  the  American  Con- 
tinent. I  have  come  here  with  the  purpose  of  rendering, 
if  it  is  in  my  power,  a  service  to  those  ideals  of  right,  justice, 
and  international  good  faith  and  good  will  which  should 
control,  as  principles  of  action,  the  policy  of  the  great  and 
the  small  powers. 

The  policy  of  the  United  States  in  the  Latin  American 
Continent  is  carried  out  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  whose  interest  in  these  matters  has  not  as  yet 
been  aroused.  The  American  people  are  too  busy  with 
domestic  questions  at  home  and  with  European  questions 
abroad.  The  public  pays  no  attention  to  affairs  in  Central 
and  South  America.  The  government  is  thus  free  to  act 
without  any  check  and  without  any  sense  of  responsibility. 
The  government  carries  forward  its  policies  in  Latin  Amer- 
ica even  against  the  expressed  disapproval  of  Congress. 
The  situation  thus  created  is  one  of  force,  pure  and  simple. 
It  is  the  dictatorial  use  of  overwhelming  might  in  countries 
too  weak  and  distressed  to  think  even  of  resistance.  In 
this  arbitrary  way,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who- 
ever he  may  be,  disposes  of  the  fortunes  and  shapes  the 

301 


302  JACINTO   LOPEZ 

destinies  of  the  small  countries  bordering  on  the  Carib- 
bean Sea,  according  to  his  own  and  exclusive  personal  will ; 
without  a  consistent  and  deliberate  policy,  without  any 
knowledge  or  any  comprehension  of  the  peoples  of  those 
countries,  their  problems,  their  needs,  their  woes,  their 
aspirations;  without  any  regard  for  international  law;  some- 
times violating  even  the  very  elements  of  Christian  civili- 
zation. His  sole  inspiration  is  that  of  the  old  Roman 
patriotism. 

The  unbridled  and  unaccountable  freedom  of  action  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States  in  the  countries  of  the 
Caribbean,  the  supreme  dictatorship  which  he  exerts  over 
those  lands,  through  both  the  great  moral  authority  as  well 
as  the  naval  power  of  the  United  States,  fearless  of  the  ulti- 
mate sanction  of  public  opinion  at  home — because  the  Amer- 
ican people  are  entirely  unaware  of  and  entirely  indifferent 
to  the  events  in  a  region  which  is,  however,  so  intimately 
connected  with  the  most  vital  interests  of  the  United  States 
— this  is  one  of  the  things  that  impress  and  surprise  us  Latin 
Americans.  We  are  more  deeply  and  painfully  impressed 
because  we  admire  and  love  this  country  and  fervently 
believe  that  it  has  a  civilizing  mission  to  fulfill  in  the  world 
at  large,  but  especially  and  particularly  in  Latin  America. 

The  century  old  struggle  with  Great  Britain  for  the  con- 
trol of  the  Isthmian  routes;  the  unflinching  policy  of  the 
United  States  throughout  the  nineteenth  century  with  re- 
gard to  the  Island  of  Cuba;  the  war  of  1898  for  the  expul- 
sion of  Spain  from  the  remaining  strongholds  of  her  American 
empire,  testify  to  the  paramount  concern  and  interest  of 
the  United  States  in  the  Caribbean  waters  and  lands. 
This  interest  is  manifold.  It  is  commercial,  political  and 
strategic.  It  is  inseparable  from  the  national  security  of 
the  United  States.  This  wide  area  of  waters  is  the  natural 
outlet  for  the  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States  with  the 
West  Indies  and  with  the  South  American  countries.  In 
the  policy  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  the 
Panama  Canal  is  considered  as  a  part  of  the  coast  line  of 
the  United  States.  We  can,  therefore,  imagine  with  all 
its  imponderable  significance,  a  continuous  coast  line  ex- 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN         303 

tending  from  the  northwestern  frontier  of  the  United  States 
down  to  and  through  the  Panama  Canal,  and  therefrom  up 
to  the  northeastern  frontier  embracing  within  it  the  whole 
of  Central  America,  the  Danish  Islands,  Cuba,  Haiti  or 
Santo  Domingo  and  Porto  Rico.  The  continental  shore 
line  of  South  America,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  River 
to  the  Yucatan  Channel,  completes  the  land  boundaries  of 
the  Caribbean  Sea  on  the  South  and  West.  The  Platt 
amendment;  the  Panama  Canal  and  its  history  since  the 
government  of  the  United  States  decided  on  an  American 
Canal  under  American  control;  the  events  of  November, 
1903,  which  resulted  in  the  secession  of  Panama  from  Col- 
ombia and  the  treaty  of  1904  with  the  new  republic  by  which 
the  United  States  became  the  sovereign  of  the  Canal;  the 
policy  of  the  United  States  government  in  Central  America 
since  1910,  taking  the  Republic  of  Nicaragua  as  a  starting 
point  or  an  entering  wedge;  the  purchase  of  the  Danish 
Islands,  made  possible  by  the  Great  War  and  its  economic 
consequences  in  the  mother  country;  and  finally  the  policy 
of  the  United  States  government  in  Haiti  and  Santo  Do- 
mingo in  1915  and  1916,  likewise  favored  by  the  Great  War, 
are  but  manifestations  of  the  supremely  controlling  inter- 
est of  the  United  States  in  the  Caribbean. 

The  imperialistic  expansion  of  the  United  States  since 
1898  is  altogether  in  this  magnificient  area.  Look  at  the 
long  line  of  islands  stretching  down  from  Key  West  to  Port 
of  Spain.  The  United  States  has  a  footing  everywhere. 
From  Guantanamo,  the  United  States  can  control  the  wind- 
ward passage  between  Cuba  and  the  Dominican  Republic. 
From  Porto  Rico  the  United  States  can  control  the  Mona 
Passage.  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo  are  under  the  direct 
control  of  the  United  States  since  1915  and  1916  and  each 
has  a  harbor  of  first  class  importance  for  a  naval  station, 
Mole  St.  Nicholas  and  Samana  Bay;  the  former  command- 
ing the  eastern  side  of  the  Windward  passage,  and  the  latter 
commanding  the  Mona  passage  from  the  west.  The  treaty 
with  Nicaragua  gives  the  United  States  possession  of  the 
Great  Corn  and  Little  Corn  Islands  off  the  east  coast  of 
this  republic  together  with  the  right  to  build  a  naval  base 


304  JACINTO   LOPEZ 

on  the  Gulf  of  Fonseca.  St.  Thomas  has  a  splendid  harbor 
for  a  naval  station  too.  Colon  and  the  fortifications  of  the 
Canal,  the  Canal  itself,  which  has  become  the  center  of 
the  naval  power  of  the  United  States,  complete  the  picture 
of  the  southward  progress  of  the  United  States  in  its  march 
of  expansion  in  the  Mediterranean  of  the  New  World,  which 
has  thus  become  an  American  domain,  the  Mare  Nostrum 
of  the  United  States.  Add  to  this  the  United  States  navy, 
and  we  can  have  an  idea  of  the  amount  of  independence  of 
the  sovereign  nations  bordering  on  the  Caribbean.  In  this 
way  we  can  at  the  same  tune  have  an  idea,  in  a  general 
sense,  of  the  actual  situation  in  the  Caribbean  world.  The 
United  States  is  today  the  supreme  lord  of  the  Caribbean 
and  the  whole  question  is  what  use  does  it  make  or  is  it  going 
to  make  of  its  power  and  how  is  it  going  to  improve  its 
opportunities? 

We  all  know  the  story  of  Panama.  We  all  know  how  the 
present  position  of  the  United  States  in  that  most  important 
spot  in  the  world  was  attained.  We  all  know  that  the  Amer- 
ican people  did  not  approve  the  Roosevelt  policy  in  this 
matter;  but  what  is  not  so  well  known  is  that  the  nature  of 
the  procedure  of  the  United  States  government  in  Nicaragua 
and  San  Domingo  is  similar  to  that  which  was  followed  in 
Panama.  It  was  by  force  that  the  United  States  govern- 
ment prevented  Colombia  from  maintaining  its  integrity. 
It  was  by  force  that  the  United  States  government  estab- 
lished in  San  Domingo  in  1916  an  American  military  govern- 
ment. It  was  by  force  that  the  United  States  government 
obtained  in  Nicaragua  in  1914  rights  and  privileges  that 
practically  destroyed  the  political  existence  of  that  country 
as  a  sovereign  nation  and  impaired  the  independence  of  each 
and  all  the  remaining  four  Central  American  republics.  It 
is  by  force  that  the  conditions  and  the  situation  thus  created 
in  those  countries  are  maintained. 

In  San  Domingo,  a  regularly  constituted  government, 
headed  by  an  unimpeachable  man,  was  overthrown  by  the 
American  marines,  simply  because  that  man,  true  to  his 
duty,  to  his  oath,  to  his  conscience,  to  his  country,  stub- 
bornly refused  to  affix  his  signature  to  a  treaty  handing 
over  to  the  United  States  the  sovereignty  of  the  republic. 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN         305 

In  Nicaragua,  the  United  States  government  gave  its 
support  to  an  armed  uprising  against  the  central  govern- 
ment. The  revolution  was  entirely  justified  and  deserved 
the  sympathy  of  liberty-loving  men  everywhere.  But  after 
the  war  was  over  it  was  seen  that  its  leaders  were  willing  to 
pay  a  prohibitive  price  for  the  help  received  from  the  United 
States  government  and  without  which  they  would  not  have 
succeeded.  Soon  after  the  organization  of  the  new  regime 
the  chief  of  the  Latin  American  division  of  the  department 
of  state,  Mr.  Dawson,  made  his  appearance  at  Managua, 
Nicaragua,  and  served  notice  upon  President  Estrada  that 
his  government  would  not  be  recognized  by  the  United 
States  government  except  upon  the  acceptance  by  him  of 
the  following  conditions:  the  negotiation  of  a  fifty  million 
dollar  loan  through  the  intervention  of  the  United  States 
government,  and  the  control  of  the  custom  houses  of  the 
republic  by  the  United  States  as  security  for  the  loan. 
Everything  was  granted,  but  the  American  Congress  denied 
its  approval  to  this  pact. 

The  note  in  which  the  revolutionary  government  of  Nic- 
aragua asked  the  United  States  to  render  it  the  service  of 
entering  with  it  into  a  contract  for  the  management  of  the 
custom  houses  and  the  placing  of  the  loan,  was  written 
by  Mr.  Dawson  himself,  and  he  opposed  even  the  slightest 
alteration  suggested  by  the  Nicaraguan  minister  of  foreign 
affairs.  Notwithstanding  the  refusal  of  Congress,  the  Amer- 
ican government  persisted  in  its  Nicaraguan  policy  and  a 
new  arrangement  was  made  by  which  a  New  York  banking 
concern  made  to  the  government  of  Nicaragua  a  loan 
amounting  to  $1,500,000  and  later  a  further  amount  of 
$755,000.  Since  then  the  custom  houses  have  been  in  the 
hands  of  these  New  York  bankers.  Meanwhile,  the  princi- 
pal leaders  of  the  successful  revolution,  five  in  number,  made 
an  agreement  with  Mr.  Dawson  providing  that  the  nomina- 
tion for  president  of  the  republic  should  fall  exclusively 
upon  one  of  their  group  of  five.  There  was  a  violent  reac- 
tion against  this  trend  of  events.  The  minister  of  war, 
General  Mena,  rebelled.  The  provisional  president  lost  no 
time  in  asking  the  intervention  of  the  United  States  govern- 


306  JACINTO   LOPEZ 

ment  to  put  down  the  rebellion.  He  wanted  the  United 
States  to  protect  with  its  forces  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
republic  including  the  protection  of  his  own  government, 
which  for  all  practical  purposes  from  that  moment  had 
ceased  to  exist.  American  troops  were  landed  and  for  the 
first  tune  in  the  history  of  the  continent  the  government  of 
the  United  States  took  sides  with  its  military  forces  in  the 
civil  strife  of  an  American  country  in  favor  of  a  government 
which  had  declared  its  impotency  to  rule.  Later  on  this 
same  government,  thus  saved  and  backed  by  the  United 
States  government,  made  a  treaty  with  the  government  to 
which  it  owed  its  existence,  establishing  an  American  pro- 
tectorate over  the  republic.  This  treaty  failed  in  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  and  a  new  treaty  was  submitted 
in  1914,  which  was  approved  in  1916,  this  tune  without  the 
provision  of  the  protectorate  plan.  By  this  convention  the 
United  States  paid  to  the  government  of  Nicaragua  three 
million  dollars  in  return  for  the  following  concessions:  the 
right  to  construct  a  trans-isthmian  canal  by  the  Nicaraguan 
route  or  any  other  route  in  the  territory  of  Nicaragua;  and 
the  control  by  lease  for  ninety-nine  years  of  Great  Corn  and 
Little  Corn  Islands  and  of  a  naval  base  in  the  Gulf  of  Fon- 
seca.  The  United  States  has  the  option  to  renew  the  lease 
for  a  similar  further  period. 

Costa  Rica,  Honduras  and  Salvador  protested  to  the 
United  States  against  this  treaty  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
destructive  of  their  independence  as  sovereign  states  and 
contrary  to  their  most  vital  interests.  A  canal  through  the 
Nicaraguan  route  cannot  be  built  without  the  consent  of 
Costa  Rica  which  possesses  proprietary  rights  over  part  of 
the  territory  in  the  region  of  the  San  Juan  River :  and  more- 
over Nicaragua  was  forbidden  by  treaty  to  enter  into  any 
agreement  whatsoever  for  the  opening  of  the  canal  without 
Costa  Rica  concurring  in  the  compact.  Costa  Rica  and 
Salvador,  each  acting  separately,  brought  suit  against 
Nicaragua  in  the  Central  American  Court  of  Justice,  estab- 
lished under  the  Washington  Convention  for  the  judicial 
settlement  of  all  disputes  between  the  five  republics.  The 
government  of  Costa  Rica  in  March,  1916,  asked  the  court 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN          307 

to  declare  that  under  the  Canas-Jerez  Treaty,  the  Cleveland 
Laudo  and  the  General  Treaty  of  Peace  and  Amity  of  1907, 
the  government  of  Nicaragua  had  no  right  to  enter  with 
the  United  States  or  any  other  power  into  an  agreement 
such  as  the  Bryan-Chamorro  treaty;  and  that,  therefore, 
this  treaty  was  null  and  of  no  value.  On  its  part  the 
government  of  Salvador,  on  August,  1916,  petitioned  the 
court  to  issue  a  writ  ordering  the  government  of  Nicaragua 
to  abstain  from  executing  the  Bryan-Chamorro  treaty. 

The  government  of  Salvador  alleged  that  the  Bryan- 
Chamorro  treaty  violated  the  rights  of  Salvador  in  the 
Gulf  of  Fonseca  and  imperilled  its  independence  and  na- 
tional existence;  that  said  treaty  infringed,  moreover,  the 
rights  of  Salvador  under  Articles  III  and  IX  of  the  Washing- 
ton Convention  of  1907.  In  December,  1916,  the  court 
decided  in  favor  of  Costa  Rica,  supporting  in  every  point 
the  position  taken  by  her  as  complainant  against  Nicaragua; 
and  in  March,  1919,  the  court  passed  judgment  equally 
favorable  in  the  case  of  Salvador  versus  Nicaragua,  and 
declared  that  the  Nicaraguan  government  was  under  obli- 
gations to  reestablish  the  status  quo  which  existed  between 
the  three  republics  prior  to  the  Bryan-Chamorro  treaty. 

Did  Nicaragua  obey  the  sentence  of  the  International 
Judicial  Court  of  Central  America  established  under  the 
Washington  Convention  to  which  Nicaragua  was  a  party 
in  common  with  the  other  Central  American  republics? 
The  practical  result  was  that  Nicaragua  withdrew  her  rep- 
resentative in  the  court;  and  that  the  court,  the  first  insti- 
tution of  its  kind  in  the  world,  the  greatest  achievement  of 
civilization  in  our  day  in  America  as  an  agency  of  peace 
and  justice,  passed  away  and  exists  no  longer.  The  Bryan- 
Chamorro  treaty  has  no  standing  in  international  law.  It 
is  inimical  to  the  most  vital  interests  of  the  Central  Ameri- 
can republics.  It  is  in  conflict  with  previous  treaties  al- 
ready in  force.  It  was  made  with  a  government  set  up  and 
kept  up  by  the  United  States  government,  a  government 
that  has  no  power  or  authority  to  make  a  treaty  of  such  a 
nature.  The  people  of  Nicaragua  have  not  been  consulted, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  that  treaty  makes  renuncia- 


308  JACINTO    LOPEZ 

tion  of  sovereign  rights  that  no  nation  can  make  without 
committing  suicide.  Elihu  Root  publicly  stated  that  the 
treaty  should  not  be  made  with  the  existing  government 
of  Nicaragua  but  with  a  representative  government.  But  a 
representative  government  would  never  make  such  a 
treaty.  This  treaty  has  disturbed  the  good  relations  of 
peace  and  friendship  and  mutual  confidence  between  the 
five  Central  American  republics.  The  government  of  Nic- 
aragua is  by  them  considered  as  playing  the  r61e  of  Judas. 
And  if  there  has  not  been  a  coalition  of  the  other  four  re- 
publics to  remove  it  and  bring  Nicaragua  back  into  the 
Central  American  family  of  sister  republics  it  is  only  be- 
cause that  government  is  under  the  protection  of  the  United 
States  which  supports  it  against  the  will  of  the  Nicaraguan 
people.  It  was  hi  fear  of  a  Central  American  crusade  to 
liberate  Nicaragua  from  that  government  that  the  pro- 
tectorate idea  was  put  into  the  treaty  of  1914  with  the 
United  States. 

The  people  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  the  government 
of  which  was  by  force  supplanted  in  November,  1916,  by 
an  American  military  government,  has  ever  since  that  fate- 
ful day  been  under  martial  law.  Justice  even  in  civil 
matters  is  administered  there  by  the  provost  marshal. 
There  is  a  censorship  of  the  press  compared  to  which  the 
methods  of  the  Russian  czar  were  an  ideal  example  of  lib- 
eralism and  wisdom.  There  is  a  system  of  repression  by 
the  application  of  corporal  punishments  so  cruel  and  so 
inhuman  that  you  would  feel  inclined,  I  am  sure,  to  think 
it  unbelievable.  They  imprison  the  people  without  any 
process  of  law.  They  chase  the  people  in  the  country  as  if 
they  were  savage  beasts.  Torments  or  tortures  of  various 
forms,  that  of  the  water  and  that  of  the  rope,  for  instance, 
are  practiced.  Now  the  people  of  that  republic  are  a 
civilized  Christian  people.  It  can  be  said  that  San  Domingo 
is  the  cradle  of  Christian  civilization  in  America.  What  is 
their  crime?  What  have  they  done?  These  people  have 
always  been  most  friendly  to  the  United  States.  The  treaty 
of  1907  with  the  United  States  government  was  made  to 
preserve  then*  independence  and  sovereignty.  By  this 


THE   NATIONS   OF  THE   CARIBBEAN  309 

treaty  the  Dominican  people  occupy  a  singular  position  in 
relation  to  the  United  States  which  was  to  act  and  is  acting 
as  a  trustee  for  them  before  the  creditor  nations.  The 
reason  alleged  for  invading  their  country  and  subjugating 
them  is  that  there  was  at  the  time  a  civil  war.  There  is  so 
far  as  I  know  no  reason  put  forth  for  treating  them  as  the 
Germans  themselves  have  not  been  treated.  After  all  that 
how  can  they  believe  in  civilization?  It  is  in  the  name  of 
civilization  that  they  have  been  crushed  as  a  nation  and 
oppressed  and  terrorized  as  if  we  were  not  living  in  the 
twentieth  century  but  three  or  four  centuries  ago. 

I  was  in  Cuba  in  1916.  I  witnessed  the  presidential 
elections  of  November  of  that  year.  There  was  a  land- 
slide for  the  candidate  of  the  Liberal  Party.  The  defeated 
candidate  was  the  president  himself  who  had  run  for  re- 
election, a  word  that  has  a  sinister  significance  in  Latin 
American  politics  and  Latin  American  history.  Reelec- 
tion means  there  usurpation  and  usurpation  means  revolu- 
tion or  civil  war.  This  is  invariably  the  rule  in  those  coun- 
tries and  it  did  not  fail  this  time  in  Cuba.  History  repeated 
itself  in  1916  in  the  Pearl  of  the  Antilles.  The  man  in  the 
presidential  chair  was  most  unwilling  to  submit  to  the 
verdict  of  the  people  and  through  the  most  scandalous 
expedients  carried  on  his  determination  to  keep  himself  in 
office  for  another  four  years.  There  was  of  course  a  revo- 
lution. Revolution  in  Cuba  means  intervention  by  the 
United  States.  Washington  intervened  in  effect  but  did  it 
to  put  down  the  revolution  and  uphold  the  usurpation. 
Revolution  is  an  unpardonable  crime  in  the  eyes  of  Wash- 
ington which  has  no  eyes  for  usurpation. 

From  November  when  the  elections  were  held,  to  Feb- 
ruary, when  the  coup  d'etat  took  place,  there  was  plenty  of 
tune  and  opportunity  for  the  United  States  government  to 
exert  its  moral  influence  and  prevent  a  catastrophe.  Had 
the  least  effort  been  made  to  do  so,  the  sad  events  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1917,  in  Cuba  could  have  been  easily  averted.  The 
experience  of  1905  had  shown  a  defect  in  the  Platt  amend- 
ment. It  was  not  preventive.  It  did  not  come  into  action 
until  after  the  consummation  of  the  facts.  This  most  val- 


310  JACINTO   LOPEZ 

uable  lesson  was  disregarded  in  1916-1917.  Measures  could 
have  been  taken  and  should  have  been  taken  then  and  there 
to  avoid  the  revolution  of  1917.  The  way  to  avoid  the 
revolution  was  to  make  the  usurpation  impossible.  And 
with  a  single  word  whispered  by  the  American  minister  at 
Havana,  in  the  ear  of  President  Menocal,  the  people  of 
Cuba  would  have  been  spared  the  bloodshed,  the  destruc- 
tion of  property,  the  disorder  and  the  discredit  incident  to 
the  coup  d'etat.  It  is  our  opinion  that  the  Platt  amend- 
ment was  conceived  with  the  purpose,  hi  part,  to  save  Cuba 
from  the  cancer  that  has  eaten  into  the  Latin  American 
republics,  despotic  government.  By  article  III  of  the  Platt 
amendment,  the  United  States  has  the  right  to  intervene 
to  maintain  a  government  which  will  protest  liberty.  Lib- 
erty was  killed  in  Cuba  in  1917  and  a  despotic  government 
arose  from  the  official  conspiracy  to  defeat  the  will  of  the 
people  as  expressed  in  the  elections  of  November,  1916. 
Why  did  Washington  permit  this  thing  to  happen?  And  it 
would  not  have  been  possible  but  for  the  line  of  action  taken 
by  Washington.  The  revolution  would  have  deposed  the 
usurper,  had  it  not  been  for  the  protection  of  Washington 
and  the  decidedly  hostile  attitude  assumed  by  it  toward 
the  revolution.  Evidently  Washington  failed  in  its  duty. 
It  should  have  prevented  the  conflict.  It  should  have  by 
all  means  seen  to  it  that  a  representative  government  was 
maintained  in  Cuba  in  that  emergency.  As  it  was,  democ- 
racy was  destroyed  in  Cuba  in  1917  and  Washington  was 
primarily  responsible  for  it.  There  is  no  popular  govern- 
ment in  Cuba  today  and  the  outlook  is  very  dark.  How  is 
representative  government  to  be  reestablished  in  Cuba? 

The  revolutions  in  Latin  America  are  movements  of  free- 
dom. They  are  consistently  made  against  despotic  govern- 
ments. The  aspiration  to  liberty  thus  expressed  is  seldom 
realized  but  failure  never  kills  the  will  to  be  free,  and  so 
long  as  despotism  exists,  so  long  the  aspiration  to  liberty 
will  fight  for  its  extermination.  This  is  the  secret  of  the 
endless  civil  wars  in  those  countries.  It  is  this  state  of 
things  which  creates  the  opportunity  and  affords  the  pretext 
for  action  by  the  United  States  of  the  sort  we  have  seen  in 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN  311 

reviewing  the  situation  in  Central  America,  San  Domingo 
and  Cuba. 

Notice  that  intervention  never  happens  when  despotism 
is  in  peaceful  control.  It  commences  to  threaten  the  very 
moment  there  is  an  uprising  against  it.  Revolutions  are 
the  explanation  and  the  justification  of  the  presence  of  an 
American  military  government  in  San  Domingo.  A  revo- 
lution is  the  explanation  of  the  Panama  treaty.  A  revolu- 
tion is  the  explanation  of  the  Bryan-Chamorro  treaty.  The 
conclusion  is  that  the  struggle  for  liberty,  for  good  and  rep- 
resentative government,  in  short,  for  democracy,  leads  to 
foreign  servitude  and  that  those  people  in  order  to  preserve 
then*  nationalities  should  keep  quiet  and  get  along  the  best 
they  can  under  despotism,  no  matter  how  cruel  and  destruc- 
tive it  may  be. 

Nearly  every  Latin  American  nation  has  passed  through 
the  dark  age  of  despotism  and  revolution.  Argentina  is 
the  most  striking  example.  Chili  had  presidential  dic- 
tators until  1892.  And  many  of  them,  the  great  majority, 
have  succeeded  in  the  struggle  for  freedom  and  have  estab- 
lished stable  and  strong  governments.  The  policy  observed 
by  the  United  States  in  Nicaragua,  for  instance,  would 
have  made  this  process  impossible  and  civilization  would 
have  been  the  loser. 

Those  countries  have  a  right  to  live,  deserve  to  live  and 
must  live.  Because  they  have  not  as  yet  achieved  stability, 
they  should  not  be  absorbed  and  submerged.  Nations  very 
much  older  and  larger  than  they  are  still  solving  tlhe  problem 
of  self-government  and  internal  pe"ace.  No  great  European 
power  would  even  think  of  taking  advantage  of  the  con- 
ditions in  which  Russia  and  Germany  find  themselves  today 
in  order  to  exact  from  them  concessions  that  would  forever 
undermine  their  status  of  sovereign  and  independent  na- 
tions. The  greatest  of  all  wars  in  all  the  centuries  was 
fought  by  the  greatest  of  all  powers  in  order  to  preserve 
the  independence  and  sovereign  existence  of  the  small 
nations  of  Europe. 

It  is  our  belief  that  in  the  existing  situation  in  the  Carib- 
bean, the  United  States  has  a  noble  and  superior  mission 


312  JACINTO   LOPEZ 

to  fulfill.  It  consists  in  helping  the  nations  of  the  Carib- 
bean to  enter  definitely  into  the  path  of  political  develop- 
ment. This  should  be  done  hi  a  friendly,  generous  way, 
with  no  selfish  aims.  The  fundamental  principle  of  action 
of  this  mission  should  be  the  preservation  of  the  territorial 
integrity,  and  the  independence  and  the  sovereignty  of 
those  nations.  Here  is  an  opportunity  for  the  United  States 
to  render  civilization  a  service  of  first  magnitude.  How  it 
should  or  could  be  done  is  not  for  me  to  discuss  on  this 
occasion.  I  know  it  can  be  done.  I  know  it  should  be 
done.  The  United  States  already  is  the  overlord  in  the 
Caribbean.  There  is  no  fear  of  any  international  political 
rivalry  in  this  region.  The  future  of  the  world  is  not  to 
lie  in  warfare  but  hi  peace.  Disarmament  will  become 
more  and  more  imperative  every  day.  The  hunt  for  naval 
bases  and  positions  of  commercial  advantage  should  not 
be  carried  so  far  as  to  trespass  moral  and  political  bounda- 
ries which  are  really  inviolable  if  we  are  to  live  in  a  civilized 
world.  Naval  bases  and  new  fields  for  commercial  expan- 
sion should  not  be  acquired  at  the  price  of  the  integrity, 
the  independence  and  the  sovereignty  of  small  and  defense- 
less nations  which  love  their  individuality  and  are  loath 
to  part  with  it.  All  those  people  of  the  Caribbean  Seas 
have  the  sentiment  of  nationality.  They  believe  in  their 
own  destiny.  They  hate  foreign  domination.  In  this  very 
month  of  May  several  thousand  Panamanians,  the  very 
people  of  the  so-called  revolution  of  November,  1903, 
marched  through  the  streets  of  their  city  in  a  torch  light 
parade  as  a  protest  against  the  acquisition  by  the  United 
States  of  the  major  portion  of  Taboga  Island  for  fortifica- 
tion as  a  part  of  the  Pacific  defense  scheme  of  the  Panama 
Canal.  An  automobile  in  which  General  Pershing  was 
driving  to  a  ball  in  his  honor,  was  halted  by  the  procession 
and  forced  to  return  to  his  hotel. 

These  countries  are  immensely  rich.  They  have  enor- 
mous possibilities.  The  extraordinary  increase  of  their 
commerce  in  recent  years,  which  is  mainly  carried  on  with 
the  United  States,  shows  their  importance.  They  consti- 
tute in  themselves  an  empire.  They  deserve  to  live.  They 
have  the  will  to  live. 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  CARIBBEAN         313 

The  power  of  the  United  States  is  in  itself  so  great  that 
all  the  other  nations  of  the  Caribbean  are  powerless  against 
it.  In  this  sense  their  independence  is  already  inevitably 
restricted.  There  is  no  possibility  that  any  one  of  them  or 
all  of  them  combined  would  be  able  to  act  contrary  to  the 
interests  of  the  United  States,  but  their  rights  as  nations 
should  be  strictly  recognized  and  respected  and  their  in- 
ternal problems  should  be  viewed  sympathetically  and  with 
a  spirit  of  intelligence  and  disinterested  cooperation. 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM" 

By  Kirby  Thomas,  Consulting  Mining  Engineer,  New  York 

The  Caribbean  region  is  usually  considered  to  include  the 
countries,  colonies  and  dependencies  bordering  on  the  ir- 
regular ellipse  formed  by  the  Islands  of  Cuba,  Porto  Rico 
and  Haiti  on  the  north;  the  Yucatan  Peninsula,  the  Central 
American  countries  and  part  of  Colombia  on  the  west; 
Colombia  and  Venezuela  on  the  south,  and  the  Lesser  An- 
tilles on  the  east.  The  three  colonial  Guianas,  although 
without  these  physical  limits  should  be  included  to  form 
part  of  the  same  economic  group,  likewise  the  outlying  is- 
lands of  the  Indies,  and  for  general  consideration,  the 
Bahamas  and  also  the,  geographically  separate,  Bermuda 
Islands. 

The  Gulf  of  Mexico  region,  part  of  which  is  bordered  by 
important  Mexican  states,  is  geographically  an  extension  of 
the  Caribbean  region,  but  for  the  purposes  of  this  discus- 
sion and,  generally,  is  considered  separately. 

HISTORY  AND  TRADE  DEVELOPMENTS 

The  Caribbean  region,  as  a  geographical  unit,  is  well 
denned,  but  its  communal  members  vary  greatly  in  then* 
political  status  and  relations  and  in  social  and  economic 
development.  Geographically,  and  by  reason  of  sea  trans- 
portation conditions,  the  region,  as  a  whole,  is  one  of  our 
"nearest  neighbors"  and  therefore  presents  the  inevitable 
political,  social  and  business  problems  arising  from  the 
proximity  and  contact  of  communities  and  of  nations.  The 
variety  of  conditions  prevailing  in  the  Caribbean  area,  and 
the  continual,  and  often  unexpected,  political  and  economic 
changes  affecting  the  individual  Caribbean  government  or 
geographic  members,  has  given  a  complexity  to  this  "neigh- 
borly" contact  with  the  United  States  which  has  puzzled 

314 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  315 

American  statesmen,  befogged  American  public  opinion, 
and  disconcerted  the  commercial  and  political  programs  of 
other  nations. 

The  historical  development  of  the  Caribbean  people  has 
had  a  most  important  bearing  on  the  conditions  which  pre- 
vail today,  socially,  politically  and  economically.  The  first 
civilization  in  the  Americas  was  in  the  Caribbean  and  for 
several  centuries  this  region  was  the  source  of  great  commer- 
cial activity  and  an  important  factor  in  the  world's  political 
affairs  and  in  the  development  of  the  world's  commerce  and 
commercial  politics.  These  conditions  were  at  their  zenith, 
and  largely  were  developed  before  the  United  States  came 
into  national  existence,  and  before  the  North  American 
colonies  had  become  a  factor  either  as  a  market  for  the 
products  of  this  region,  or  as  a  source  of  supply. 

Prior  to  the  Spanish-American  war,  the  most  important 
trade  activities  of  the  Caribbean  region  were  controlled  by 
Spain  and  Great  Britain,  and  American  participation  was 
limited  and  generally  unsatisfactory.  The  American  people 
did  not  have  the  need  of  greater  commercial  exchange  with 
the  Caribbean  communities  nor  did  they  realize  the  impor- 
tant trade  possibilities  in  that  direction.  Although  the 
United  States  gained  important  territorial  extensions  and 
commercial  advantages  as  a  result  of  the  war  with  Spain, 
it  certainly  cannot  be  said  that  the  deliberate  motives  of 
the  war,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  were  either  politi- 
cal or  economic.  The  results,  as  we  now  know,  were  of 
much  greater  importance  to  the  United  States  economi- 
cally, than  they  were  politically.  And  these  results  have 
greatly  influenced  our  Caribbean  relations  and  interests. 

The  post-Spanish-war  boom  in  American  trade  and  in- 
vestments in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  was  followed  by  an 
awakened  American  interest  in  the  whole  Caribbean  region 
and  a  greater  interest  and  activity  in  Latin  American  trade 
and  developments  generally.  Notwithstanding  the  coin- 
cident diversion  of  American  interest  and  capital  to  Mexico, 
the  trade  and  investments  in  the  Caribbean  region  had 
attained  to  a  substantial  total  by  the  end  of  the  first  decade 
of  this  century.  Investments,  outside  of  Cuba  and  Porto 


316  KIRBY   THOMAS 

Rico,  where  they  were  assured  of  protection  and  fair  treat- 
ment by  the  American  political  participation,  were  re- 
stricted and  limited,  except  in  a  few  special  instances,  and 
American-Caribbean  trade  at  all  times  had  to  overcome  the 
low  prices  and  politically  organized,  or  supported,  compe- 
tition of  German  and  British  commercial  interests. 

The  undertaking  of  the  Panama  Canal  by  the  United 
States  and  the  establishment  of  American  political  influence 
on  the  Isthmus,  was  the  next  forward  step  affecting  American 
commercial  interests  in  the  Caribbean.  The  whole  world 
realized  that  the  canal  meant  a  great  stimulus  to  Caribbean 
trade  and  business.  The  nature,  circumstances  and  magni- 
tude of  the  Panama  task  appealed  to  the  American  imagi- 
nation and  turned  attention  to  consideration  of  the  new  com- 
mercial conditions  expected  to  result  from  the  completion 
of  the  canal.  From  these  considerations,  and  also  because 
of  the  unconscious  stimulation  of  national  pride,  arose 
many  ambitious  commercial  plans  on  the  part  of  American 
business  interests.  These  were  influenced  also  largely  by 
the  growing  realization  of  the  need  of  foreign  trade  expan- 
sion to  relieve  recurrent  conditions  of  over  production  in 
basic  manufacturing  industries  and  to  afford  a  market  for 
the  agricultural,  mining  and  other  products  which,  in  some 
instances,  far  exceeded  the  domestic  requirements. 

Many  of  these  plans,  particularly  concerning  the  Ameri- 
can Tropical  region,  were  weird  and  ill  advised  and  never 
came  to  serious  endeavor.  Others  were  deferred,  or  frus- 
trated, by  reason  of  the  uncertainties  in  the  finances  of  the 
world  which,  as  we  now  know,  anticipated  the  European 
war  by  several  years.  There  was,  however,  a  notable  in- 
crease in  the  exchange  of  merchandise  and  products  between 
the  United  States  and  the  principal  Caribbean  countries. 

The  American  capitalist,  with  his  often  almost  unlimited 
following  of  investors,  sent  his  effective  engineers  and  trained 
executives  afield  in  all  the  Caribbean  region  to  find  things 
worth  doing.  In  all  these  countries  there  were  railroads  to 
be  built,  mines  and  plantations  to  be  worked,  opportunities 
for  manufacturing  establishments,  for  public  utility  and 
hydro-electric  installations,  and  generally,  great  need  of 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  317 

development,  undertakings  such  as  really  delight  certain 
American  " captains  of  industry,"  and  which  appeal,  per- 
haps often  unduly,  to  American  investors.  But  the  tan- 
gible results  were  disappointing.  The  Panama  Canal  had 
not  changed  Caribbean  human  nature  nor  reformed  political 
practices  or  conditions,  which  had  prevailed  since  politics 
began  in  the  American  Tropics.  On  close  contact  and  after 
examination,  chronic  and  unrestrained  political  graft,  con- 
stant revolution  and  over  night  changes  of  government  did 
not  appeal  to,  nor  were  they  understood,  by  the  responsible 
representatives  of  American  capital.  In  consequence,  the 
"industrial  conquest  of  the  American  Tropics,"  of  which 
so  much  was  heard  in  the  beginning  of  our  Panama  enter- 
prise, was  hindered  and  deferred,  at  least,  as  far  as  most  of 
the  independent  countries  were  concerned. 

A  strong  factor  in  the  failure  of  American  capital  and 
enterprise  to  engage  adequately  in  these  needed  develop- 
ment undertakings  was  the  result  and  example  of  the  course 
of  events  in  Mexico;  in  that  country  in  1911  began  a  politi- 
cal upheaval  which  resulted,  first  and  last,  in  the  destruc- 
tion, or  effective  confiscation,  of  over  a  billion  of  dollars  of 
American  investments  and  the  killing  of  hundreds  of  Amer- 
ican citizens  and  the  expulsion  of  nearly  one  hundred  thou- 
sand Americans  from  Mexico.  The  failure  of  the  American 
government  to  protect  the  property  or  lives  of  its  nationals 
in  Mexico,  followed  by  the  surprising  announcement  of 
President  Wilson  of  a  policy  of  non-interference  and  the 
public  and  official  criticism  and  denouncement  of  the  busi- 
ness activities  of  Americans  in  Mexico  and  abroad,  by  the 
administration,  naturally  influenced  the  plans  of  American 
capital,  and  of  Americans,  in  respect  to  engagements  in 
other  Latin  American  countries  which  did  not  have  a 
reasonably  long  record  of  stability  and  responsibility  in 
their  governments. 

The  European  war  had  a  mixed  result  on  American  com- 
mercial interests  in  the  Caribbean.  It  removed  practically 
all  European  competition,  but  the  limitations  on  transpor- 
tation facilities  and  the  necessary  restrictions  on  trade  and 
business  at  home  prevented  any  expansion,  except  in  special 
lines. 


318  KIRBY   THOMAS 

The  same  favorable  conditions  as  to  European  competi- 
tion have  prevailed,  in  part,  during  the  year  and  a  half  which 
has  elapsed  since  the  Armistice,  and  the  transportation  facil- 
ities, especially  the  Caribbean  commerce  trade,  have  been 
largely  restored.  The  direct  effect  has  been  an  enormous 
increase  in  American  trade  with  all  the  Caribbean  countries. 
As  a  result  of  this  increase  in  the  exports  of  the  Caribbean 
countries  and  also  because  of  the  high  prices  paid  for  the 
products,  an  unprecedented  prosperity  has  followed,  notably 
in  Colombia  and  Venezuela,  which  has  brought  about  in- 
creased purchases  of  all  commodities,  including  luxuries, 
from  the  United  States,  the  only  market  practically  avail- 
able up  to  the  present. 

To  again  take  up  the  historical  incidents  of  the  Caribbean 
story:  As  early  as  1905,  President  Roosevelt,  to  prevent 
action  on  the  part  of  European  creditors  against  Santo 
Domingo,  in  variance  with  the  spirit,  if  not  the  letter,  of 
our  Monroe  Doctrine,  took  control  of  the  financial  affairs 
of  Santo  Domingo,  an  independent  country  of  the  Carib- 
bean group.  Congress  approved  this  action,  indirectly. 
There  was  some  discussion  of  this  departure  in  American 
international  policy,  but  no  effective  protest  on  the  part  of 
the  general  public  nor  any  political  group  was  made.  In 
1915,  President  Wilson  directed  a  like  proceeding  in  Haiti, 
Congress  again  approving  tacitly  as  it  did  very  recently  in 
connection  with  similar  incidents  involving  the  self  govern- 
ing countries  of  Costa  Rica  and  Nicaragua.  In  none  of 
these  instances  has  American  control  yet  been  removed,  nor 
has  any  European  or  South  American  nation  officially  pro- 
tested. These  policies  have  been  denounced,  as  aggressive 
and  "imperialistic"  in  some  of  the  countries  south  of  us. 
There  is  now  in  New  York,  a  Latin  American  "junta" 
devoted  to  agitation  against  these  acts  and  policies,  osten- 
sibly on  high  grounds  of  political  right  and  justice. 

Whatever  may  be  the  abstract  right  in  the  policy  which 
has  been  installed  on  foreign  soil  in  the  Caribbean  region  in 
four  separate  instances,  agents  of  the  American  government, 
backed  effectively  by  American  soldiers,  the  fact  remains 
that  this  form  of  modified  political  control  has  survived 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  319 

consistently,  in  the  only  cases,  in  which  it  has  ever  been 
applied  in  this  manner,  through  the  administration  of  three 
presidents  representing  both  of  the  major  political  parties. 

A  result,  which  may  be  determinative  later,  has  directly 
followed  from  the  establishing  of  these  quasi-protectorates. 
There  has  been  an  increased  local  prosperity  in  each  case 
and  considerable  American  investments  have  been  made  in 
these,  heretofore  shunned,  communities.  The  current  of 
trade  of  the  countries  concerned,  both  export  and  import, 
for  many  years  has  been  preponderantly  with  this  country, 
so  we  are  concerned  commercially  only  with  the  consequent 
increase  in  the  volume  of  business,  which  is  considerable. 

In  1918  the  United  States  acquired  by  purchase  the 
Danish  West  Indies,  thus  increasing  our  definite  national 
interest  in  the  Caribbean  region  and  securing  a  naval  base, 
important  to  control  from  possible  acquirement  by  some 
other  nation. 

It  is  not  advisable  nor  necessary  here  to  discuss  future 
changes  in  the  Caribbean  political  map.  Certainly  some 
other  of  the  "O.  Henry"  republics  of  Central  America  would 
be  greatly  benefited  in  matters  of  trade  and  development  if 
they  came  under  the  aegis  of  the  unexpressed  American 
policy  in  the  Caribbean.  It  will  be  an  affront  to  the  na- 
tional feelings  of  Colombia  and  Venezuela  to  mention  them 
in  this  connection,  but  Colombia  has  for  a  time  been  more 
or  less  under  the  spell  of  the  doctrines  of  Cabrera,  the 
Latin  American  fire  brand,  associated  with  the  late  Mr. 
Carranza  in  Mexico.  Besides  Colombia  is  still  nursing  a 
memory  of  the  incidents  of  Panama  and  is  grieved  over  the 
long  delay  in  the  $25,000,000  salve  to  her  hurt  which  has 
been  promised  at  Washington.  In  Venezuela,  President 
Gomez  is  now  apparently  well  established  and  he  has  done 
important  things  for  the  material  welfare  and  prosperity 
of  his  country,  but  after  Diaz  in  Mexico  came  the  "  ava- 
lanche," and  Venezuela  may  yet,  and  soon  be  another  case 
of  history  repeating  itself.  The  British  Islands  in  the  Car- 
ibbean would  like  freer  and  closer  commercial  relations  with 
the  United  States,  their  best  market,  and  in  fact  the  only 
market  for  their  major  products.  The  French  colonies  are 


320  KIRBY   THOMAS 

yearly  in  "red"  on  that  nation's  budget — and  Britain  and 
France  owe  very  large  sums  to  the  United  States  for  War 
loans!  The  Dutch  colonies  are  a  continual  source  of  finan- 
cial concern  to  the  mother  country. 

What  do  the  other  South  American  countries  think  about 
the  continued  increase  of  American  ownership  and  political 
control  and  financial  and  trade  participation  in  the  Carib- 
bean? There  is  no  public  record  of  any  official  protest. 
Some  of  the  publicists  and  extremists  from  the  South  have 
been  feebly  heard  from  and  they  foresee  dire  things  in  the 
future  for  all  Latin  America.  But  the  obvious  answer  is, 
if  answer  need  be  made  now,  that  the  Caribbean,  by  reason 
of  its  political,  social  and  economic  relations  is  our  immediate 
and  important  problem,  and  only  remotely  the  concern  of 
the  distant  South  American  countries,  which  are  only 
slightly  interested  in  its  economic  or  political  affairs  or  its 
commercial  developments. 

NAVAL  AND  MILITARY  CONSIDERATION 

The  experiences  of  the  war  have  caused  a  realization  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  of  the  necessity  of  prepara- 
tion and  anticipation,  hi  the  matter  of  protection  for  its 
extensive  coast  lines  and  its  numerous  and  enormously 
important  ports,  and  of  the  vital  gateway,  the  Panama 
Canal. 

In  addition  to  the  several  good  harbors  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  the  naval  base  at  Key  West,  Florida,  in  its 
own  territory,  the  United  States  has  an  established  and 
important  naval  base  at  Guantanamo,  Cuba,  and  controls 
the  Porto  Rican  harbors,  and  the  more  recently  acquired 
Port  of  St.  Thomas,  in  the  Danish  Islands,  which  has  been 
called  the  "  Gibraltar  of  the  West  Indies."  Naval  bases  in 
Haiti  and  San  Domingo  are  available.  Panama  is  well 
fortified  and  protected.  Recent  negotiations  have  given 
us  important  naval  advantages  in  Nicaragua.  Other  Cen- 
tral American  ports  are  likely,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  included 
in  the  American  naval  control  program. 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  321 

The  policy  of  the  United  States  is,  therefore,  not  deter- 
mined by  the  necessity  of  acquiring  more  naval  bases  in 
the  Caribbean  region,  but  rather  by  a  national  prudence 
to  prevent  the  development  of  any  threatening  or  prepon- 
derant interests  on  the  part  of  any  other  first  rank  nation. 
Great  Britain  is  already  an  important  factor  in  the  West 
Indies  situation  by  reason  of  its  control  of  Jamaica  and  the 
Barbadoes  and  the  far  outlaying  Bermudas  which  constitute 
a  naval  base  of  strategic  value.  The  Caribbean  interests  of 
France  and  Holland  are  practically  negligible  and  are  not 
likely  to  be  of  serious  concern  to  us,  except  as  they  offer  a 
starting  point — for  national  expansion  or  a  temptation  for 
some  other  strong  and  aggressive  European  power. 

The  necessity  of  establishing  such  conditions  and  relations 
as  will  prevent  the  use  of  the  available  ports  of  the  Carib- 
bean by  any  outside  nation,  or  a  nation  at  war  with  the 
United  States,  was  emphasized  by  the  fears  and  experiences 
of  the  recent  war.  The  rumored  plans  for  German  submar- 
ine bases  in  Yucatan,  on  the  Colombia  coast  and  on  the 
Island  of  Margarita,  part  of  Venezuela,  though  more  or 
less  groundless,  caused  alarm  and  trouble.  The  facility  for 
establishing  wireless  telegraph  or  airplane  bases  by  an  enemy 
hi  tune  of  war  in  the  territories  surrounding  the  Caribbean 
is  now  fully  realized. 

The  promptness  and  effectiveness  with  which  Cuba  came 
to  our  aid  in  1917  and  the  advantage  of  the  control  of 
Panama  and  Porto  Rico  will  be  remembered. 

From  these  considerations  it  is  obvious  that  the  diplo- 
matic policy  of  the  United  States  should  be  directed  towards 
establishing  such  relations  with  the  independent  Caribbean 
countries  as  will  assure  at  least,  a  complete  and  friendly 
neutrality,  in  case  of  another  war. 

HEALTH  AND  SANITATION  RELATIONS 

Under  present  day  conditions  the  health  and  sanitation 
of  any  part  of  the  world  is  not  limited  by  national  bounda- 
ries. The  cooperation  of  all  the  civilized  countries  in  stamp- 
ing out  contagious  and  other  diseases  is  well  established  in 


322  KIRBY   THOMAS 

principle  and  in  practice.  Particularly  are  all  countries 
concerned  in  the  general  sanitary  conditions  of  their  neigh- 
bors, for  travel  and  commerce  must  exist,  more  or  less,  be- 
tween neighboring  countries  and  with  it  are  the  possibilities 
of  the  transmission  of  diseases.  This  protective  idea  has 
been  carried  farther  in  regulating  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities to  exclude  various  plant  and  animal  pests. 

The  Caribbean  region  has  made  much  progress  hi  public 
and  private  sanitation  and  in  the  advancement  of  health 
conditions.  Particularly  Venezuela  is  active  hi  this  re- 
spect. However,  much  yet  remains  to  be  done,  especially 
in  some  of  the  smaller  countries  and  communities. 

The  United  States  has  an  obligation  and  a  duty  in  respect 
to  the  plans  and  policies  which  may  advance  the  general 
sanitation  of  the  Caribbean  communities. 

MUTUAL  ECONOMIC  NEEDS 

It  is  unnecessary  to  establish  the  advantage  or  the  neces- 
sity for  foreign  markets  for  American  products.  Several 
years  ago  it  was  calculated  that  in  a  number  of  the  basic 
industries,  the  American  capacity  for  production,  at  maxi- 
mum and  under  stimulation,  was  equal  to  eight  times  the 
normal  home  consumption.  In  agriculture  and  with  some 
mining  products,  a  similar  necessity  for  an  outside  market 
exists. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  expanding  and  varying  needs  of 
the  American  people  and  the  requirements  of  nearly  every 
line  of  industry  depend  on  products  and  materials  which 
must  be  secured  beyond  our  borders.  For  much  of  the 
raw  materials  required  by  the  United  States,  and  for  certain 
staple  products,  the  Latin  American  countries  are  geograph- 
ically, and  by  reason  of  their  natural  resources  and  indus- 
tries, and  the  advantage  of  sea  transportation,  the  logical 
sources  of  supply. 

The  increased  demand  for  distinctively  tropical  products, 
such  as  coffee,  sugar,  rubber,  cocoanuts,  tropical  fruits, 
including  the  ubiquitous  banana,  requires  a  trade  control  of 
a  large  tropical  area.  Practically  no  part  of  the  United 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  323 

States  is  really  tropical  and  the  available  and  developed 
tropical  area  of  the  Western  hemisphere  is  small  compared 
to  that  which  is  controlled  by  the  countries  of  Europe. 

A  consideration  of  the  large  demands  for  these  special 
tropical  products  and  the  limited  area  to  supply  them,  the 
most  important  part  of  which  is  included  within  the  Carib- 
bean region,  indicates  the  necessity  for  encouraging  the 
development  of  production  in  the  Caribbean  countries  and 
the  establishing  of  effective  transportation  and  business 
facilities  to  meet  the  growing  requirements  of  the  United 
States  markets. 

The  Caribbean  countries  are  relatively  small  consumers 
of  manufactured  products  on  account  of  the  backward  and 
limited  social  development  of  the  great  proportion  of  the 
people,  but  they  require  increasing  quantities  of  railroad 
and  construction  materials,  and  of  machinery  of  all  kinds, 
and  also  merchandise  and  manufactured  products  of  kinds 
which  the  United  States  is  well  adapted  to  supply. 

Many  special  natural  resource  products  can  best  be  ob- 
tained from  the  Caribbean  region — as  platinum  from  Colom- 
bia, chrome  and  manganese  from  Cuba  and  Costa  Rica, 
magnesite  and  bauxite  from  Venezuela  and  Guiana,  iron 
from  Cuba,  and  tobacco  from  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico.  There 
is  a  mutual  advantage  in  encouraging  the  development  of 
these  nearer-by  sources  of  supply  for  our  essential  raw 
materials. 

LEGISLATION  AND  TRADE 

Owing  to  the,  more  or  less,  complete  dependency  of  most 
of  the  Caribbean  countries  on  the  American  markets,  it  is 
plain  that  commercial  legislation  on  the  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can government  is  often  of  vital  concern  to  them.  This 
was  exemplified  in  numerous  instances  during  the  period  of 
the  American  high-tariff  policy.  The  subsequent  inaugu- 
ration of  a  preferential  tariff  for  Cuba  and  the  free  schedule 
for  Porto  Rico  seriously  injured  some  of  the  other  Carib- 
bean communities  commercially. 

This  necessary  condition  of  inter-relation  and  trade  reac- 
tion suggests  the  practicability  of  the  adoption,  on  the  part 


324  KIRBY   THOMAS 

of  this  country,  of  a  policy  of  tariffs  and  trade  regulations 
to  create  a  basis  for  bargaining  with  the  independent  coun- 
tries and  the  colonies  to  insure  advantages  for  American 
interests.  The,  now  almost  forgotten,  policy  of  reciprocity, 
so  eloquently  presented  by  Mr.  Blame,  appealed  to  the 
imagination  of  the  Lathi  Americans  more  than  any  other 
distinctly  American  doctrine.  This  idea,  modified  to  meet 
our  present  lower  tariff  policies,  and  amplified  to  cover 
other  regulations  than  those  directly  involved  in  tariff  re- 
strictions, should  be  formally  and  systematically  adopted 
as  a  policy  for  the  development,  encouragement  and  control 
of  trade  relations  with  the  Caribbean  countries. 

In  this  connection  it  is  of  interest  to  recall  the  proposed 
reciprocal  trade  treaty  between  Canada  and  the  British 
Caribbean  colonies  which  was  under  negotiation  a  few  years 
ago.  This  treaty  had  for  its  purpose  the  support  of  the 
trade  necessities  of  the  British  colonies  and  the  diversion 
of  their  trade  to  Canada. 

BANKS  AS  TRADE  PIONEERS 

The  American  banking  institutions  have  very  recently 
recognized  the  need  of  increased  and  closer  trade  relations 
with  all  of  the  South  American  countries  by  organizing  for- 
eign connections  and  by  the  inauguration  of  very  elaborate 
plans  for  branch  or  affiliated  banks.  This  new  American 
banking  policy  has  been  extended  to  most  of  the  Caribbean 
countries.  These  American  banking  developments  are  a 
material  aid  to  trade  and  investment.  However,  it  appears 
that  the  banks  are  really  engaged  in  pioneering,  in  expecta- 
tion of  the  ability  of  American  producers  to  compete  in 
outside  markets,  and  in  anticipation  of  a  continuation  of 
satisfactory  political  conditions  south  of  us,  or  the  more 
favorable  trend  of  the  policies  of  the  American  government 
towards  the  protection  and  fostering  of  American  trade  and 
investments  abroad. 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  325 

AMERICANS  AND  DEVELOPMENT  WORK 

The  American  abroad,  especially  in  the  partly  developed 
countries  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  is  essentially  a  developer 
and  a  creator,  and  it  is  in  this  relation  that  he  is  particularly 
effective  and  successful.  Already  Americans  have  success- 
fully built  railroads,  installed  water  power  projects,  public 
utilities,  irrigation  undertakings  and  equipped  and  operated 
mining  and  oil  properties  in  all  of  the  Latin  American 
countries.  American  capital  investing  in  these  enterprises 
usually  requires  that  the  business  and  technical  manage- 
ments shall  be  in  the  hands  of  Americans. 

These  undertakings,  directly  or  indirectly  effect  trade. 
The  American  engineer  and  manager  specifies  American 
materials  for  construction  and  American  tools.  He  and 
his  associates  and  assistants  demand  a  certain  amount  of 
American  goods  for  the  business  and  for  personal  consump- 
tion. The  local  merchants  are  influenced  to  introduce 
American  goods.  The  result  is  the  establishment  of  a  grow- 
ing trade  and  one  which  is  not  easily  displaced  by  compe- 
tition from  other  countries.  These  items,  in  the  aggregate, 
are  considerable,  as  exemplified  in  the  development  of  trade 
in  Mexico  prior  to  the  last,  and  recent,  era  of  Mexican 
revolutions. 

OIL,  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

The  recent  realization  that  some  of  the  Caribbean  coun- 
tries have  very  important  possibilities  for  oil  and  the  critical 
national  need  for  a  continued  and  increased  oil  supply,  has 
resulted  in  developments  and  undertakings  which  may 
divert,  control  or  overshadow  the  normal  factors  in  com- 
mercial progress  and  which  may  influence,  through  abso- 
lute economic  necessity  or  enlightened  national  self  interest, 
our  government  attitude  and  policies  toward  extra  terri- 
torial business  and  investments.  This  economic  urge  has 
already  influenced  enormous  American  investments  and 
operations  hi  oil  hi  Mexico,  a  condition  likely  to  be  very  soon 
duplicated  in  Colombia  and  Venezuela. 


326  KIRBY  THOMAS 

AMERICAN  COLONIZATION 

There  have  been  numerous  attempts  to  establish  American 
colonies  in  the  tropical  regions.  In  the  main,  these  have 
not  been  successful,  partly  because  the  type  of  American 
interested  is  ordinarily  not  sufficiently  adaptable  and  the 
colonies  are  usually  not  well  organized  nor  financed.  These 
American  colonies,  where  essayed,  have  been,  more  or  less, 
out  of  harmony  with  local,  political  and  social  conditions, 
and  they  have  not  affiliated  with  the  native  institutions 
sufficiently  to  insure  them  the  proper  participation  in  and 
support  from  the  local  governments. 

The  American,  as  a  rule,  outside  the  United  States,  is 
most  successful  as  an  executive  or  in  charge  of  engineering 
and  constructive  work.  In  connection  with  mining  and 
similar  undertakings,  a  considerable  number  of  Americans 
have  found  it  satisfactory  and  advantageous  to  make  their 
homes  abroad. 

The  fact  that  no  large  number  of  Americans  have  under- 
taken to  colonize  in  the  Philippines,  Porto  Rico  or  Cuba, 
where  favorable  governmental  conditions  are  assured,  is  an 
indication  of  the  futility  of  advocating  American  coloniza- 
tion in  the  independent  countries  or  the  foreign  dependen- 
cies of  the  Caribbean. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BANANA 

No  discussion  of  tropical  business  is  complete  without  a 
consideration  of  the  development  of  the  banana  trade. 
This  industry  is  distinctively  American,  having  been  largely 
created  by  Americans  and  under  control  of  Americans. 
Banana  raising  utilizes  heretofore  worthless  lands  in  the 
islands  and  countries  of  the  Caribbean  and  the  growing  and 
marketing  of  this  specialized  crop  employs  a  large  amount 
of  local  labor.  On  the  other  hand,  the  product  affords  a 
very  important  contribution  to  our  national  food  variety 
and  supply. 

The  influence  of  the  banana  trade  and  the  allied  activi- 
ties is  likely  to  be  more  and  more  important  in  inter-trade 
between  the  United  States  and  the  Caribbean  for  the  busi- 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  327 

ness  is  based  on  a  mutual  situation  which  makes  its  develop- 
ment unusually  advantageous. 

The  American  market  will  take  an  enormously  greater 
amount  of  tropical  fruits  if  facilities  for  the  harvesting, 
transportation  and  marketing  are  organized  so  that  the 
cost  to  the  ultimate  consumer  is  reasonable  and  the  supply 
regular. 

Thus  the  humble  banana  is  playing  an  international  r61e 
in  the  Caribbean. 

AN  AMERICAN  OPPORTUNITY 

The  enormous  and  successful  development  of  the  Ameri- 
can packing  industry  and  its  influence  on  the  character  and 
supply  of  essential  food  products,  at  home  and  throughout 
the  world,  is  a  recognized  commercial  fact.  Within  recent 
years  several  of  the  large  American  companies,  engaged  in 
this  business,  have  undertaken  to  establish  packing  plants, 
following  the  American  methods  of  organization  and  opera- 
tion, in  Argentina,  Uruguay,  and  Brazil.  These  operations 
have  been  successful  and  promise  to  become  of  increasing 
importance  as  a  supplemental  source  of  supply  to  our  own 
food  needs  and  the  world's  requirements.  There  has  been 
no  large  undertaking  of  this  kind  in  the  northern  countries 
of  South  America.  In  Venezuela,  the  vast  pampas  area 
offers  favorable 'conditions  for  an  enormous  development  of 
stock  raising.  Efforts  are  being  made  to  establish  stock 
raising  and  packing  industries  in  both  Venezuela  and  Col- 
ombia. The  essential  preliminary  is  the  introduction  and 
the  acclimatization  of  suitable  breeds  of  live  stock  to  replace 
the  inferior  native  breeds.  This  will  take  some  years  and 
can  only  be  done  with  the  support  and  cooperation  of  local 
interests  and  local  authorities. 

The  conditions  hi  general  are  especially  ready  for  the 
development  of  important  stock  raising  business  in  some  of 
the  Caribbean  countries  and  the  opportunity  is  offered  for 
the  establishment  and  development  of  this  modern  "big 
business,"  in  control  of  Americans,  and  necessarily  financed, 
at  the  beginning,  by  American  capital. 


328  KIRBY  THOMAS 

FACTORS  IN  BETTER  UNDERSTANDING 

A  large  number  of  the  citizens  of  the  Caribbean  countries 
were  diverted  to  the  United  States  during  the  war  for  their 
business  and  social  purposes.  The  result  has  been  mutually 
beneficial.  Recently  the  South  American  countries  have 
followed  a  policy  of  sending  officials  and  commercial  dele- 
gates to  the  United  States  for  business  negotiations  and 
for  general  investigations  and  the  effect  of  this  personal 
contact  is  particularly  satisfactory.  Our  own  governmental 
organizations  and  various  trade  and  social  societies,  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  better  understandings,  have 
been  effective  in  entertaining  these  commissions  and  visitors 
and  in  assisting  them  in  their  purpose.  Various  public  and 
business  organizations  have  been  engaged  in  suitable  pub- 
licity with  reference  to  the  Lathi  American  countries.  Some 
of  these  countries  have  placed  then*  claims  and  advantages 
before  the  American  people  by  means  of  lectures,  publica- 
tions and  other  educational  activities.  All  these  things  are 
factors  in  a  better  understanding  and,  particularly,  have 
they  been  beneficial  to  the  American  public  which  was  woe- 
fully ignorant  of  the  actual  conditions  in  the  countries  to 
the  south  of  us  and  was,  more  or  less,  indifferent  to  them 
for  various  reasons. 

During  the  past  twenty  years,  a  large  number  of  Ameri- 
cans have  learned  Spanish,  either  hi  schools  or  through  then* 
activities  hi  Mexico  and  in  other  Spanish  countries.  Their 
children,  living  abroad  have,  too,  acquired  facility  in  Span- 
ish. This  has  made  available  a  large  number  of  Ameri- 
cans, for  undertaking  responsible  representations  in  Lathi 
American  countries  for  American  business,  especially  in 
engineering  and  constructive  lines. 

PAN-AMERICAN  RAILROAD  AND  INTERNAL  TRANSPORTATION 

The  program  for  a  Pan-American  railroad  from  Hudson 
bay  to  Cape  Horn  dates  back  nearly  forty  years :  This  am- 
bitious plan  has  been  rather  an  abstract  idea  than  an 
actual  policy  on  the  part  of  the  several  countries  concerned 
or  the  financial  interests  engaged  in  railroad  development. 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  329 

However,  considerable  actual  progress  toward  its  realiza- 
tion has  been  made,  incidental  to  independent  and  internal 
railroad  construction  on  both  continents. 

The  actual  completion  of  an  overland  rail  line  between 
the  United  States  and  the  northern  countries  of  South  Amer- 
ica is  not  of  special  importance  in  connection  with  the  devel- 
opment of  mutual  trade  relations.  It  is  likely  that  the  inau- 
guration of  such  facilities  would  increase  travel  materially, 
particularly  when  the  service  can  be  brought  up  to  present 
day  standards  of  comfort  and  convenience.  It  will  appeal  to 
the  travel  lust  of  an  increasing  number  of  people  to  take  an 
international  tram  in  New  York  for  remote  political,  social 
and  economic  centers  on  another  continent.  Such  a  rail- 
road would  form  one  "leg"  of  various  touring  plans. 

This  Pan-American  railroad  project  is  over-shadowed  by 
the  greater  conveniences  and  cheapness  of  sea  transportation 
which  is  available  for  practically  all  of  the  trade  develop- 
ments between  the  Caribbean  region  and  the  United  States. 

The  great  need  of  the  Central  American  and  continental 
countries  of  the  region  is  internal  transportation.  This 
condition  has  been  notably  relieved  in  the  Central  American 
countries  in  the  last  decade,  largely  by  American  enter- 
prises, supported  by  the  local  governments. 

In  Colombia  and  Venezuela,  the  Magdalena  and  the 
Orinoco  river  systems  and  other  rivers  afford  conditions 
for  internal  navigation  facilities.  These  have  been  utilized 
greatly,  but  there  is  need  of  extensive  improvement  of  these 
water  ways  and  of  increased  and  better  equipment.  Vene- 
zuela is  particularly  desirous  of  removing  the  obstruction 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  so  as  to  be  able  to  use  this 
river  for  access  to  its  largely  undeveloped  "hinterland." 

In  both  these  countries,  notably  in  Venezuela,  a  great 
deal  of  work  has  been  done  recently  in  road  building.  With 
the  automobile,  this  improvement  affords  a  means  of  social 
and  business  intercourse  which  is  a  fair  substitute  for  rail- 
roads, especially  for  moderate  distances  or  where  the  traffic 
is  small  in  bulk  or  volume. 

Many  of  the  island  communities  also  are  in  need  of  inter- 
nal transportation  and  there  are  many  projects  in  abeyance, 


330  KIBBY   THOMAS 

for  short,  but  very  important  railroad  extensions  which 
must  come  to  realization  as  soon  as  capital  is  available  and 
local  political  conditions  assuring. 

In  the  development  of  these  railroads  and  in  furnishing 
financial,  engineering  and  organization  aid  for  them  and  for 
the  larger  transport  projects  the  American  business  interests 
have  a  great  opportunity. 

The  rapid  establishment  of  telegraph  lines  and  wireless 
stations  throughout  the  remoter  parts  of  these  countries 
has  been  a  great  factor  in  breaking  down  barriers  and  in 
putting  them  in  touch  with  the  world's  thought  and  doings. 
It  is  likely  that  the  aerial  transport  for  passengers  and  freight 
will  be  established  between  the  sea  ports  and  the  interior 
in  the  near  future.  This  already  is  in  process  of  develop- 
ment in  Peru  and  Brazil.  The  effect  of  this  development 
in  transportation  and  communication  is  to  unify  and  mo- 
bilize the  resources  of  these  countries  and  to  stimulate 
them  commercially,  and  to  bring  them  into  closer  social, 
political  and  trade  relations  with  their  "nearest  neighbor," 
the  United  States. 

IN  GENERAL  AND  IN  CONCLUSION 

The  United  States  has  a  preponderant  and  direct  interest, 
politically  and  economically,  in  the  Caribbean  region,  which 
interest  has  been  greatly  increased  by  the  trade  and  political 
relations  due  to  the  Panama  canal  and  by  the  new  trade 
conditions  during  and  subsequent  to  the  war. 

The  continued  adhesion  to  our  Monroe  Doctrine  involves 
direct  obligations  on  our  part  in  certain  cases.  This  fact, 
and  our  increased  self  interest,  may  be  accepted  as  the 
justification  for  an  actual,  but  not  specifically  announced, 
American  policy  towards  the  disturbed  and  disturbing  mem- 
bers of  the  Caribbean  political  group,  which  policy  has  pre- 
vailed continuously  and  consistently,  through  the  adminis- 
trations of  Presidents  Roosevelt,  Taft  and  Wilson. 

This  actual  Caribbean  policy  is  in  apparent  contrast  to 
our  national  program  in  the  case  of  Mexico  during  nearly 
a  decade,  notwithstanding  the  similarity  of  issues  involved. 


AMERICA'S  "MARE  NOSTRUM"  331 

This  contradictory  situation,  however,  may  be  taken  as  the 
personal  interpretation  of  President  Wilson,  for  neither 
congress  nor  any  political  party  has  endorsed  our  Mexican 
policy,  while  congress  has  by  enactments  approved  of  our 
Caribbean  political  undertakings. 

The  development  of  inter-trade  relations  between  the 
United  States  and  the  independent  Caribbean  countries 
has  been  greatly  retarded  hi  the  past  by  lack  of  governmental 
stability  and  the  incidental  frequent  disturbances  to  per- 
sonal and  property  rights,  both  of  natives  and  of  foreigners. 
The  remarkable  commercial  progress  of  Cuba  and  Porto 
Rico  since  the  advent  of  American  participation  in  their 
governmental  affairs  is  a  measure  of  the  economic  loss 
which  has  resulted  from  misgovernment  hi  some  of  the 
other  Caribbean  countries.  The  two  larger  countries,  Col- 
ombia and  Venezuela,  have  made  considerable  progress  and 
economic  gain,  but  not  nearly  as  much  as  they  would  have 
made  had  there  been  full  confidence  in  their  political  insti- 
tutions. Most  of  the  Central  American  countries,  and 
notably  Santo  Domingo  and  Haiti,  have,  indeed,  paid  a 
heavy  economic  price  for  political  misbehavior  with  no 
corresponding  gain  in  social  or  political  progress  or  ideals. 

There  has  been  a  great  increase  hi  trade  between  the 
United  States  and  all  the  Caribbean  countries  and  colonies 
since  1914.  Cplombia  and  Venezuela  have  been  particu- 
larly prosperous  during  the  last  two  years,  measured  by  the 
standards  of  export  and  import  statistics.  Most  of  this 
trade  has  been  with  the  United  States  since  the  War  began, 
for  patent  reasons,  but  the  return  of  normal  world  compe- 
tition seriously  threatens  the  temporary  advantages  of  this 
country  in  the  Caribbean,  and  hi  fact  in  all  Latin  American 
trade. 

The  American  banking  interests  have  cooperated  effect- 
ively with  American  commercial  interests  to  develop  and 
hold  this  trade.  American  capital,  as  far  as  available  from 
extraordinary  domestic  demands,  is  being  increasingly  em- 
ployed in  development  undertakings  in  these  countries,  a 
fact  which  will  result  in  controlling  trade  effectively  in 
important  lines.  However,  investments  cannot  continue  on 


332  KIRBY   THOMAS 

any  substantial  scale  without  assurances  of  security  and 
fair  treatment  and  such  assurances  under  the  conditions, 
can  only  come  from  the  establishment  of  a  change  of  policy 
on  the  part  of  our  own  government  toward  trade  and  invest- 
ments in  foreign  lands,  particularly  in  those  countries  which 
have  a  consistently  bad  political  record. 

Our  relations  with  our  southern  neighbors,  Mexico  and 
Caribbean  countries,  constitute  one  of  the  most  urgent, 
difficult  and  important  of  our  foreign  problems  of  today,  a 
problem  which  must  be  met  and  solved  by  this  generation 
and  one  which  requires  wise,  courageous  and  far  sighted 
statesmanship  backed  by  intelligent  and  comprehending 
public  opinion. 

An  American  writer  has  referred  to  the  Caribbean  as  the 
"American  Mediterranean,"  an  apt  enough  geographical 
designation,  but  in  view  of  the  increasing  interest  and 
concern  in  Caribbean  affairs,  political,  social  and  commer- 
cial, on  our  part,  this  designation  may  well  be  changed  to 
"America's  'Mare  Nostrum'" — Our  Sea. 


PORTO  RICO  AS  A  NATIONAL  PROBLEM 

By  Pedro  Cap6  Rodriguez,  Spanish  Editor  of  the  American 

Journal  of  International  Law;  Member  of  the  Bar 

of  Porto  Rico 


To  refer  to  Porto  Rico  as  a  national  problem  demanding 
attention  as  something  of  important  national  concern  may 
seem  perhaps  rather  strange.  How  can  Porto  Rico  be  a 
national  problem  at  all  for  the  United  States?  The  answer 
to  this  question  will  seem  perhaps  rather  difficult  to  the 
average  person,  but  that  is  probably  because  after  the 
acquisition  of  that  Island  from  Spain  nearly  twenty-two 
years  ago,  the  people  in  this  country  have  busied  them- 
selves with  so  many  important  and  pressing  national  and 
international  problems  which  demanded  attention,  that 
nearly  everyone  almost  have  forgotten  our  existence.  So 
to  the  average  person  it  will  be  a  matter  of  speculation  to 
determine  what  are  the  elements  which  enter  into  this 
extraordinary  and  never  heard  of  problem. 

As  a  matter  of  history,  the  American  people  have  given 
very  little  attention  to  Porto  Rico  or  its  inhabitants.  I  do 
not  say  this  as  a  reproach,  I  simply  state  it  as  a  fact.  The 
general  inference  in  this  country  is  that  the  government  of 
the  United  States  is  doing  for  them  what  is  right.  It  is 
generally  surmised  that  our  present  condition,  politically, 
economically  and  even  socially,  is  by  far  superior  to  the 
condition  we  ever  enjoyed  under  the  rule  of  Spain.  All 
these  things  undoubtedly  are  true.  I  could  enlarge  upon 
them  and  show  with  quite  reliable  data,  statistics  and  docu- 
ments that  our  present  government,  our  finances,  our  agri- 
culture, our  industry,  our  commerce  are  all  immensely 
better.  Our  external  trade  has  increased  so  much  that  it 
seems  almost  an  exaggeration  to  mention  it.  From 

333 


334  PEDRO   CAP6   RODRIGUEZ 

$17,000,000  in  1901,  it  has  jumped  to  the  almost  incredible 
amount  of  $142,000,000  in  1919,  which  is  nearly  one  thou- 
sand per  cent.  It  may  be  well  to  mention  that  of  this 
large  trade  the  United  States  absorbs  over  80  per  cent, 
namely,  $129,000,000  which  exceeds  the  normal  trade  of 
this  country  with  Russia,  Spain,  the  Philippines,  or  any 
Latin  American  country  except  Argentina,  Brazil,  Chile, 
Cuba  or  Mexico.  It  is  almost  as  large  as  the  trade  of  this 
country  with  China,  or  the  combined  trade  of  Guatemala, 
Salvador,  Honduras,  Nicaragua,  Costa  Rica,  Panama, 
Dominican  Republic,  Haiti  and  Bolivia  with  the  United 
States.  This  of  course  shows  the  commercial  importance 
of  Porto  Rico  to  the  United  States. 

In  educational  matters,  the  present  level  of  Porto  Rico 
is  by  far  above  the  one  it  held  under  Spain.  At  that  time 
our  educational  establishment  was  poor  and  largely  ineffi- 
cient; today  we  have  a  modern,  democratic  school  system 
offering  free  education  to  the  children  of  the  Island  and  pro- 
viding at  public  expense,  out  of  the  Porto  Rican  treasury, 
teachers,  buildings,  equipment,  books,  etc.,  and  although 
this  system  of  public  education  is  not,  as  the  Governor  of 
Porto  Rico  says  hi  his  latest  annual  report  for  1918-1919, 
as  yet  adequate  to  the  great  needs  of  the  Island,  it  constitutes 
as  it  stands  such  an  immense  advance  over  what  existed  at 
the  earlier  date  that  the  comparison  would  be  really  instruc- 
tive and  inspiring.  I  will  not,  however,  enter  into  details. 
Suffice  it  to  say  in  this  respect  that,  as  stated  in  the  said 
report,  "the  number  of  schools,  of  children  attending 
school,  of  school  buildings,  of  teachers  and  of  expenditures 
for  school  purposes,  have  all  been  multiplied  tremendously, 
and  that  the  overwhelming  illiteracy  of  about  80  per  cent 
of  the  adult  inhabitants  has  been  reduced  to  probably  less 
than  60  per  cent,"  or,  to  be  more  exact,  to  54  per  cent. 
"Above  all,  the  variety  and  character  of  the  education,  the 
spirit  and  quality  of  the  work  done  in  the  schools  have  been 
broadened,  modernized  and  liberalized  in  accordance  with 
the  standards  and  ideals  of  the  twentieth  century." 

In  sanitation,  health,  police,  public  works  and  other 
branches  of  the  public  administration,  we  certainly  have 


PORTO  RICO  AS  A  NATIONAL  PROBLEM  335 

accomplished  a  great  deal.    As  to  roads,  says  the  governor 
of  Porto  Rico  in  his  already  mentioned  report, 

We  started  in  1899  with  267.4  kilometers  of  completed  insular 
roads — now  we  have  1,189.4  kilometers  of  completed  roads. 
.  .  .  .  In  the  twenty  years  prior  to  1899,  there  were  built 
in  Porto  Rico  9  kilometers  per  year.  In  the  past  twenty  years 
there  have  been  built  922  kilometers,  or  an  average  of  46  kilo- 
meters per  year.  And  this  same  acceleration  of  progress  can 
be  seen  in  every  other  detail  connected  with  communications, 
both  internal  and  external,  railroads,  trolley  lines,  telegraph  and 
telephone  lines,  the  cables  that  land  on  our  shores,  the  ships  that 
visit  our  harbors.  The  ox-carts  and  coaches  of  the  earlier  day 
have  been  replaced  by  trucks  and  automobiles.  In  everything 
that  enters  into  or  indicates  the  lif  e  of  a  people  there  is  to  be  seen 
this  marvelous  change  and  progress.  In  the  architecture  of  their 
homes  and  hotels,  in  the  number  and  character  of  the  crowded 
shops  and  stores,  in  the  traffic  that  throngs  the  busy  streets  and 
fine  roads,  in  the  voluntary  organizations  formed  for  pleasure  and 
for  social  welfare,  and  especially  in  the  number  and  quality  of 
the  newspapers  that  make  up  the  press — in  fact  in  everything 
one  sees,  there  is  written  the  record  and  the  proof  of  twenty  years 
of  most  remarkable  progress. 

As  to  sanitation  and  guarding  the  public  health,  it  may 
be  said  that  our  record  is  equally  creditable  to  the  change. 
The  whole  health  service  of  the  Island  has  been  organized 
and  built  up.  On  this  particular  subject  of  so  much  inter- 
est to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  says  the  so  often 
quoted  report  of  the  governor  of  Porto  Rico: 

The  modern  methods  and  agencies  of  guarding  the  public  health 
have  been  introduced,  such  as  quarantine,  hospital,  scientific 
study  of  causes,  symptoms,  treatment,  and  prevention  of  disease 
and  the  whole  medical  profession  mobilized  so  as  to  cooperate 
in  safeguarding  the  health  of  the  people.  Some  dreadful  diseases 
such  as  yellow  fever  and  perhaps  smallpox  have  apparently  been 
permanently  banished  from  the  Island,  and  many  others  seem 
to  have  been  brought  under  definite  control. 

The  death  rate  has  been  reduced  so  that  last  year,  if  we  set 
aside  the  10,888  victims  due  to  the  great  epidemic  of  influenza 
and  its  comph' cations,  it  was  only  23.1  per  thousand. 

In  legislative  matters,  in  the  enforcement  of  law  and  order, 
and  in  the  administration  of  justice,  we  have  also  made  very 
substantial  progress.  In  municipal  administration  the 
showing  is  simply  astonishing.  Let  me  quote  once  more 
from  the  aforesaid  report  of  the  governor  of  Porto  Rico. 
He  says  on  this  point: 


336  PEDRO  CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

In  1899,  immediately  after  the  change  of  sovereignty,  the  credit 
of  the  municipalities  was  so  bad  that  the  military  governor,  Gen. 
George  W.  Davis,  made  the  following  statement  in  his  report 
on  civil  affairs  for  that  year : 

"Until  municipal  government  and  administration  is  reformed 
and  elevated  to  a  very  much  higher  plane  than  now,  I  see  no  hope 
of  greatly  improved  social,  domestic,  or  economic  conditions." 

The  progress  made  by  the  municipalities  during  the  twenty 
years  has  completely  destroyed  the  distrust  expressed  in  this  rather 
pessimistic  statement.  The  large  floating  municipal  debt,  which 
in  1901  amounted  to  $501,128,  has  completely  disappeared,  and 
now  all  the  municipalities  close  their  financial  operations  each 
year  with  cash  surpluses  on  hand,  while  during  the  earlier  period 
only  debts  remained.  In  further  proof  of  this  progress  we  may 
mention  the  extraordinary  development  of  public-service  enter- 
prises that  have  been  built,  nearly  all  of  them,  during  this  period. 
In  the  75  municipalities  of  the  Island  there  are  now  37  water 
systems,  8  sewers,  22  markets,  77  slaughterhouses  and  52  hospitals. 

The  present  public  debt  of  the  Island  is  a  little  over 
$10,000,000,  but  for  every  dollar  of  this  public  debt,  all 
created  during  the  last  twenty  years,  as  the  governor  says 
in  his  report,  Porto  Rico  has  more  than  one  dollar  and  a 
half  invested  in  permanent  public  improvements  to  show 
for  it.  "To  be  sure,"  he  says,  "the  surplus  of  $5,000,000 
had  to  be  invested  out  of  the  annual  revenues,  but  a  tax 
system  has  been  created  and  efficiently  administered  in 
order  to  produce  these  revenues.  Many  larger  countries 
not  a  thousand  miles  away  have  four  times  the  public  debt 
and  not  half  as  much  to  show  for  the  money." 

We  have  also  developed  physically,  morally  and  intel- 
lectually. Our  standards  of  living. have  been  greatly  im- 
proved. Many  of  the  worst  vices,  such  as  gambling  and 
the  use  of  alcoholic  beverages,  which  in  the  earlier  period, 
as  the  governor  says,  were  openly  practised  and  recognized 
by  law,  have  now  been  prohibited  by  statutes  enacted  by 
representatives  of  the  people.  Our  working  classes  have 
been  raised  a  good  many  degrees  from  their  former  level  of 
practical  ignorance  and  neglect :  today  we  have  labor  legis- 
lation which  promotes  and  stimulates  a  healthy  development 
of  labor  conditions  which  affect  the  entire  fabric  of  our  social 
and  economical  life  as  a  people.  Our  professional  classes 
have  been  enlarged  and  increased  in  numbers  and  in  effi- 


PORTO   RICO   AS   A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  337 

ciency  and  usefulness  to  the  community.  Even  our  own 
politicians  seem  to  be  doing  quite  well.  On  the  whole  it 
may  be  said  that  we  have  improved  in  every  possible 
sense;  in  the  home,  in  the  church,  and  in  the  community  at 
large.  We  certainly  are  better  off  today  than  we  were  under 
the  rule  of  Spain;  we  are  better  men;  we  are  better  Chris- 
tians; we  are  better  citizens. 

And  yet,  may  I  not  quote  a  few  further  sentences  from 
the  official  report  of  the  governor  of  Porto  Rico,  to  which 
I  have  made  so  much  reference  above,  in  order  to  show  a 
condition  which  seems  to  me  to  be  quite  important  for  the 
proper  presentation  of  my  subject?  In  that  report  of  the 
governor  of  Porto  Rico,  who  is  a  native  of  Old  Kentucky, 
and  who,  therefore,  may  be  supposed  to  be  quite  truthful 
in  the  matter,  it  is  said: 

In  short  and  in  fine,  these  two  decades  of  progress  made  by 
Porto  Rico  under  the  American  flag  taken  all  together,  constitute 
a  record  which  I  believe  can  not  be  equaled  by  any  people  any- 
where in  the  world  in  the  same  length  of  time.  It  is  a  record 
creditable  alike  to  the  Porto  Ricans  themselves,  and  to  the  great 
free  Republic  to  which  they  owe  allegiance.  Much  of  it  is  due 
to  the  liberality  and  generous  aid  of  the  great  American  Govern- 
ment and  people,  but  most  of  the  credit  is  due  to  the  splendid 
cooperation  of  the  Porto  Ricans  themselves.  Without  their  co- 
operation little  of  this  progress  could  have  been  made.  But  the 
people  of  the  Island  have  eagerly  availed  themselves  of  every 
opportunity  offere<J  them  for  improvement.  With  patriotic  de- 
votion to  their  Island  and  with  a  real  aspiration  for  progress, 
they  have  made  quick  response  to  all  the  changes  that  were 
necessary  for  development.  In  politics  and  government,  in  edu- 
cation, in  commerce  and  industry,  in  social  and  moral  improve- 
ment, they  have  offered  their  cooperation  and  aid  to  the  forces 
that  have  made  for  betterment.  This  is  the  simple  truth  as  to 
the  past,  and  this  is  the  best  augury  for  the  future. 

Now,  the  point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  at  this  time  is 
this,  that  in  twenty  years  of  American  administration  in 
the  Island,  in  twenty  years  of  continuous  schooling,  in 
twenty  years  of  earnest  endeavor,  and  in  twenty  years  of 
bitter  experience  and  hard  work,  we  have  made  such  strides 
in  the  direction  of  our  own  development  and  the  practice  of 
self  government,  that  the  very  thing  which  at  first  every 
one  thought  to  be  a  matter  of  fifty,  seventy-five  or  perhaps 


338  PEDRO   CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

one  hundred  years  has  been  practically  accomplished  al- 
ready in  the  course  of  two  mere  decades,  in  a  score  of  years. 
No  one  could  claim  today  with  any  degree  of  impartiality 
and  truthfulness  that  we  are  not  fully  prepared  to  take 
upon  our  own  shoulders  the  serious  responsibilities  of  a 
completely  self  governing  people.  By  the  guidance,  and 
help,  and  example  of  the  American  people,  we  have  already 
attained  that  condition  of  social,  economical  and  political 
development,  which  entitles  us  to  manage  at  least  our  own 
internal  affairs.  We  feel  therefore  that  we  have  already 
attained  our  political  majority;  and  just  as  any  normal  boy, 
upon  becoming  of  age,  wishes  to  go  out  into  the  world  to 
face  and  solve  by  himself  his  own  problems  of  life  without 
parental  dictation,  interference  or  caprice;  we  too,  as  a 
normal  people,  strongly  feel  that  we  ought  to  be  permitted 
to  face  and  solve  our  own  Porto  Rican  problems  in  our 
own  Port  Rican  way  without  governmental  dictation  or 
interference  from  the  United  States.  And  this  is  clearly  a 
very  natural  feeling.  It  is  not  that  we  be  ungrateful  or 
rebellious  any  more  than  a  son  who  wishes  to  live  his  own 
life  and  asks  to  be  permitted  to  do  so.  He  does  not  wish  to 
alienate  his  parents'  affection;  he  does  not  mean  to  love 
them  any  the  less.  It  is  that  he  hears  the  call  of  his  own 
nature,  of  his  own  Maker,  urging  him  to  work  out  by  him- 
self his  own  destiny,  his  own  salvation. 

I  should  not  like  to  give  the  impression  that  we  are 
rebels,  for  we  are  not.  Our  devotion  to  this  great  republic 
has  been  already  shown  during  the  last  twenty  years,  and 
especially  during  the  great  emergency  of  the  world  war. 
Our  record  during  that  terrible  conflict  ought  to  convince 
the  most  sceptical  and  cynical  of  our  loyalty  to  the  United 
States.  In  that  emergency  readily  and  gladly  we  put  all 
our  resources  and  man  power  to  the  service  of  the  United 
States.  We  actually  contributed  over  16,000  soldiers  who 
were  about  to  leave  for  Europe  when  the  armistice  was 
signed,  and  if  the  war  had  continued  a  little  longer  we  prob- 
ably would  have  contributed  nearly  30,000  or  40,000  more; 
our  contribution  in  this  respect  was  nearly  as  large  as  the 
contributions  of  all  the  territories  and  the  District  of 


PORTO  RICO   AS   A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  339 

Columbia  combined;  we  actually  contributed  nearly  $13,- 
000,000  as  our  subscription  to  the  liberty  loan  bonds,  which 
was  greatly  in  excess  of  our  quota  fixed  by  the  treasury 
department;  we  engaged  in  and  generously  donated  large 
sums  of  money  for  all  sorts  of  war  activities,  and  actually 
made  a  better  showing  than  the  territories  and  a  good  many 
of  the  states.  We  certainly  are  very  proud  of  our  record 
in  this,  as  in  other  respects.1 

The  thought  which  I  really  wish  to  convey  is  that  we  have 
already  acquired  that  high  degree  of  development  when  no 
moral  reason  exists  for  subjecting  us  any  longer  to  the  pres- 
ent state  of  governmental  control  by  the  United  States. 
We  have  undoubtedly  reached  a  point  beyond  any  possible 
expectation;  we  have  already  acquired  the  clear  conscious- 
ness of  being  a  distinct  and  characteristic  Porto  Rican 
people,  capable,  intelligent,  patriotic  and  able  to  assume 
and  discharge  the  obligations  and  duties  of  our  own  govern- 
ment. We  wish  to  be  masters  of  our  own  affairs,  insofar  as 
it  may  be  consistent  with  the  circumstances  and  the  equities 
of  the  situation.  In  this,  I  am  sure,  no  one  will  find  anything 
reprehensible,  nor  deserving  of  reproach.  That  we  should 
wish  to  live  our  own  mode  of  life  and  seek  the  welfare  and  hap- 
piness of  our  people  in  conformity  with  our  natural  inclina- 
tions, education  and  temperament,  can  not  surprise  anybody 
at  all;  for  that  >is  a  natural  aspiration  which  consciously 
or  unconsciously  rules  the  conduct  of  all  men  as  well  as  of 
all  peoples,  everywhere.  It  has  been  said  that  this  natural 
aspiration  of  men  and  peoples  everywhere  to  choose  their 
own  way  of  living  constitutes  a  right  and  a  principle  which 
can  not  be  transgressed  without  a  clear  violation  of  the 
laws  of  nature  and  the  dictates  of  justice.  It  may  be 
doubted,  however,  in  the  present  state  of  the  world,  if  this 
right  and  this  principle  can  always  be  invoked  to  settle  the 
relations  which  must  exist  between  neighboring  peoples. 
Experience  is  showing  us  constantly  that  the  contrary  is 

1  For  a  more  detailed  account  of  Porto  Rico's  actual  contributions  to 
the  world  war,  and  the  attitude  of  its  inhabitants  towards  the  United 
States  in  this  great  emergency,  see  the  Report  of  the  Governor  of  Porto 
Rico,  the  Honorable  Arthur  Yager,  for  1917,  1918  and  1919. 


340  PEDRO   CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

the  truth.  So  far  as  Porto  Rico  is  concerned,  I  believe 
that  it  would  be  better  and  more  profitable  to  examine  the 
facts,  since  the  principle,  or  the  aspiration  as  I  should  pre- 
fer to  call  it,  will  be  readily  conceded  by  any  one  as  deserv- 
ing the  most  solicitous  consideration  in  any  intelligent  study 
of  the  matter. 

II 

Porto  Rico,  as  it  is  well  known,  is  one  of  the  so-called 
Greater  Antilles,  the  smallest  of  the  three;  the  other  two 
being  Cuba  and  Santo  Domingo.  It  lies  between  Saint 
Thomas,  which  is  the  most  important  of  the  Virgin  Islands 
recently  acquired  by  the  United  States  from  Denmark,  on 
the  east,  and  Santo  Domingo  on  the  west.  The  distance 
of  Porto  Rico  from  Saint  Thomas  is  only  about  80  miles; 
in  very  clear  days  the  mountains  of  either  island  can  be 
seen  from  the  other.  From  the  main  coast  of  the  United 
States  it  is  only  about  1000  miles.  Her  position  in  respect 
to  this  country  is  1380  miles  southeast  of  New  York,  which 
is  her  principal  port  of  communication  with  the  United 
States.  The  distance  between  Porto  Rico  and  Panama  is 
only  1000  miles.  In  shape  and  contour,  Porto  Rico  resem- 
bles an  irregular  parallelogram,  and  its  total  area  is  3606 
square  miles.  According  to  the  last  census,  the  present 
population  of  Porto  Rico  is  over  1,225,000  inhabitants,  or 
an  average  of  340  per  square  mile.  More  than  62  per  cent 
of  this  population  are  whites,  and  less  than  38  per  cent  are 
colored.  The  capital  of  the  Island  is  San  Juan,  with  a  popu- 
lation of  over  75,000  inhabitants. 

In  point  of  discovery,  Porto  Rico  is  older  than  the  United 
States.  It  was  discovered  by  Columbus  on  his  second  voy- 
age hi  1493.  Its  conquest,  however,  was  not  begun  by  the 
Spaniards  until  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  under  the 
leadership  of  Don  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon,  of  whom  it  has 
been  written  as  an  epitaph  upon  his  tomb: 

Nole  sub  hoc  fortis  requiescunt  ossa  Leonis 
Qui  vicit  factis  nomina  magna  suis. 


PORTO   RICO   AS   A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  341 

Which  freely  translated  into  English  means  "This  narrow 
grave  contains  the  remains  of  a  man  who  was  a  lion  by 
name,  and  much  more  so  by  his  deeds." 

Since  that  time  until  the  cession  of  the  Island  by  Spain 
to  the  United  States,  Porto  Rico  was  a  Spanish  colony, 
although  for  a  number  of  years  prior  to  the  cession,  it  had 
enjoyed  the  political  status  of  a  Spanish  province.  Its 
constitutional  unity  with  the  mother  country  was  not  at- 
tained until  1897,  when  the  so-called  "autonomia"  or  a 
Spanish  system  of  self-government  was  extended  by  royal 
decree  to  the  Island.2 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  geographical  position  of  Porto 
Rico  is  of  great  military  and  strategical  importance  to  the 
United  States.  We  know  that  it  would  be  useless  and  ab- 
surd to  deny  this  proposition.  The  importance  of  Porto 
Rico  has,  of  course,  been,  in  a  sense,  reduced  by  the  acqui- 
sition of  the  Virgin  Islands  by  the  United  States,  which  offer 
greater  advantages  than  Porto  Rico  as  a  base  for  military 
operations  from  the  port  of  New  York  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Orinoco.  The  strategical  and  military  importance  of  Porto 
Rico  to  the  United  States  is  not,  however,  to  be  measured 
only  by  the  use  which  this  country  may  see  fit  to  make  of 
the  Island  as  a  naval  base  for  military  operations;  there  is 
also  to  be  considered,  I  presume,  the  possible  use  which  a 
hostile  nation  might  make  of  it  in  case  that  she  could  in  one 
way  or  another  gam  a  foothold  thereon.  Porto  Rico,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  included  within  the  region  of  the  Carib- 
bean, which  the  United  States  already  regard  as  a  sort  of 
national  preserve  over  which  they  must  exercise  entire  con- 
trol ;  and  therefore,  as  a  measure  of  self-defense,  and  for  the 
purpose  of  protecting  its  own  military,  political  and  even 
commercial  interests  within  the  Caribbean  Sea,  which  is, 

2  The  basis  of  this  famous  decree  was  a  law  of  reforms  passed  by  the 
Spanish  Cortes  in  1895,  upon  the  outbreak  of  the  Cuban  uprising.  A 
complete  translation  of  this  decree  will  be  found  in  U.  S.  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, 1898,  pp.  636-644.  For  an  account  of  the  government  of  Porto  Rico 
under  Spain  as  well  as  a  detailed  consideration  of  this  decree,  see  an  article 
which  I  contributed  to  The  Hispanic  American  Historical  Review,  for 
November,  1919,  entitled  "Some  Historical  and  Political  Aspects  of  the 
Government  of  Porto  Rico." 


342  PEDRO   CAP  6  RODBfGUEZ 

so  to  speak,  the  Mediterranean  of  America,  must  always, 
whatever  the  political  condition  of  Porto  Rico  may  be  now, 
in  the  past  or  in  the  future,  regard  with  deep  concern  and 
solicitude  everything  which  may  in  any  way  affect  the  desti- 
nies of  that  Island. 

Before  the  acquisition  of  Porto  Rico  by  the  United  States 
as  a  direct  cession  by  Spain  stipulated  in  Article  II,  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  had  always  been 
the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  maintain  the  status  quo 
in  the  Island  so  far  as  questions  of  sovereignty  were  con- 
cerned; that  is  to  say,  the  United  States  always  had  pre- 
ferred that  Spain  should  continue  to  exercise  her  rights  of 
sovereignty  and  proprietorship  over  Porto  Rico.  This  was 
so,  perhaps,  because  from  that  nation  they  apprehended  the 
least  danger  to  then*  own  interests,  and  because  they  did 
not  feel  quite  well  disposed  to  complicate  their  own  national 
and  international  problems  with  the  acquisition  of  a  terri- 
tory and  a  people  totally  foreign  to  their  own.  But  let  that 
be  as  it  may;  the  historical  fact  which  we  must  bear  in  mind 
is  that  the  policy  of  the  United  States  in  respect  to  Porto 
Rico  was  never,  prior  to  the  Spanish  American  war,  a  policy 
founded  on  the  desire  of  acquiring  that  Island  for  their 
own  national  aggrandizement.  For  obvious  reasons  they 
could  not  have  viewed  with  either  indifference  or  equanimity 
the  transfer  of  Porto  Rico  to  any  other  power;  nor  would 
they  have  the  Island  and  its  people  established  under  an 
independent  government  of  their  own,  for  the  reason  that 
it  was  considered  at  the  time  that  the  native  inhabitants  of 
the  Island,  as  well  as  the  Cubans,  were  not  then  sufficiently 
prepared  to  assume  and  discharge  the  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities pertaining  to  a  self-governing  people.  The  United 
States  therefore  were  compelled  to  adopt  the  policy  of  the 
Status  quo  as  the  best  course  to  be  followed  in  the  matter, 
and  thus  whether  willingly  or  unwillingly  they  always  main- 
tained that  policy  and  permitted  for  nearly  a  century  that 
Spain  should  continue  to  exercise  her  sovereignty  and  con- 
trol over  the  Island. 

It  would  be  really  interesting  and  quite  pertinent  to  the 
subject  of  this  paper  to  enter  into  a  detailed  examination  of 


PORTO  EICO   AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  343 

the  historical  origin  of  the  present  relations  of  Porto  Rico 
and  the  United  States  previous  to  the  Spanish  American 
War,  and  then  coming  down  to  the  causes  which  brought 
about  that  extraordinary  conflict,  enter  into  the  consider- 
ation of  the  reasons  which  the  United  States  had  for  chang- 
ing their  traditional  policy  in  respect  to  that  Island  and 
demand  the  cession  thereof  from  Spain  as  a  condition  sine 
qua  non  of  peace,  in  order  to  show  that  the  cession  was  not 
really  demanded  for  the  purpose  of  national  aggrandize- 
ment; nor  as  a  mere  compensation  for  or  an  equivalent  to 
the  expenses,  losses  and  sacrifices  borne  by  the  United  States 
in  the  successful  prosecution  of  that  war;  nor  even  as  part 
consideration  for  the  sum  of  twenty  million  dollars  paid  by 
the  United  States  to  the  old  mother  country  to  allay  her 
pain  for  the  loss  of  the  Philippines;  but  rather  for  the  pur- 
pose of  putting  an  effective  end  to  the  Spanish  domination 
in  our  continent  in  order  to  prevent  an  almost  certain 
recrudescence  of  the  old  Spanish  methods  of  government,, 
which  might  culminate  in  another  war  of  liberation  in  be- 
half of  the  Porto  Rican  people.  But  however  interesting  or 
pertinent  this  study  may  be  in  the  consideration  of  my 
subject,  I  must  leave  it  for  some  other  occasion  in  order 
not  to  make  this  paper  inordinately  too  long. 

So  far  as  the  purpose  of  the  United  States  in  demanding 
the  cession  of  Porto  Rico  is  concerned,  it  would  seem  that 
some  other  means  could  have  been  found  which  would  not 
have  lent  itself  so  easily  to  misinterpretation  and  doubt, 
since  it  really  appears  rather  anomalous  and  paradoxical 
that,  as  a  result  of  a  war  undertaken  in  the  name  of  human- 
ity, civilization,  liberty  and  right,  Porto  Rico  and  its  people 
should  have  been  handled  like  mere  chattels  from  one  sov- 
ereignty to  another  without  a  proper  regard  for  their  real 
wishes  in  the  matter.  It  would  have  been  enough,  per- 
haps, that  Porto  Rico  should  have  followed  the  same  fate 
as  Cuba,  and  for  this  purpose  it  would  have  been  sufficient 
to  demand  that  Spain  should  only  relinquish,  instead  of 
ceding  to  the  United  States,  her  claims  of  sovereignty  and 
government  in  the  Island,  as  it  was  done  in  respect  to  Cuba. 
This  stipulation  would  have  accomplished  the  purpose  of 


344  PEDRO   CAP6  EODRfGUEZ 

expelling  Spain  entirely  from  America,  and  at  the  same 
time  would  have  given  to  the  United  States  freedom  of 
action  to  deal  with  Porto  Rico,  free  from  the  constitutional 
entanglements  which  gave  rise  to  the  doctrine  of  non- 
incorporation  elaborated  by  the  present  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  Mr.  White,  in  the  famous  Insular  Cases.3 

But  no  one  seems  to  have  thought  of  this  practical  solu- 
tion at  the  time.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found,  perhaps, 
in  the  fact  that  Porto  Ricans  were  not  then  in  arms  against 
Spam;  nor  were  they  exteriorizing  at  that  juncture  any 
collective  desires  of  acquiring  then*  independence  as  a 
people,  probably  because  our  principal  leaders  realized  the 
practical  impossibility  of  the  thing,  and  because,  perhaps, 
the  brand  new  "  autonomia  "  which  Spain  had  just  implanted 
in  the  Island  had  had  the  effect  of  quieting  down  the  unrest 
among  the  people  and  smothering  their  political  aspirations 
to  an  independent  life  and  government.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  to  be  taken  into  account  that  Spain  had  cleverly 
fomented,  through  all  sorts  of  intrigues,  since  the  emanci- 
pation of  her  former  colonies  in  the  Western  Hemisphere, 
the  preposterous  proposition  that  the  native  inhabitants 
of  the  Island  were  neither  capable  or  prepared  for  self- 
government,  and  the  American  people,  who  had  always 
rejected,  as  a  matter  of  national  policy,  the  possibility  of 
our  independence,  fearful  of  a  repetition  of  the  afflicting 
scenes  which  had  taken  place  at  different  periods  in  the 
history  of  a  neighboring  Island,  easily  believed  what  Spain 
had  so  repeatedly  asserted  in  that  respect,  and  figured 
that  the  only  reasonable  way  out  of  the  complicated  dilemma 
was  to  demand  an  absolute  cession  of  the  Island  in  order 
to  prevent  embarrassing  situations  and  avoid  complica- 
tions of  an  international  nature. 

To  this  might  be  added  that  the  native  inhabitants  of 
Porto  Rico  had  received  the  American  forces  of  invasion 
with  such  real  and  sincere  demonstrations  of  approval  and 

*  These  cases,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of  non-incorporation  have  been  ex- 
tensively examined  by  the  present  writer  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
American  Journal  of  International  Law;  see  especially  the  July  number  for 
1919,  pp.  483-525. 


PORTO  RICO   AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  345 

rejoicing — because  they  did  not  come  to  Porto  Rico  as 
conquerors  but  as  fellow  Americans  and  liberators — that 
the  good  American  people,  logically  and  naturally  reasoned 
— because  this  was  so  pleasing  and  flattering  to  their 
national  pride — that  Porto  Ricans  would  welcome  American 
rule  in  the  Island  with  the  same  alacrity,  with  the  same 
satisfaction,  enthusiasm  and  joy  as  they  had  welcomed  the 
American  troops.  And  that,  in  a  sense,  was  true.  But 
should  it  not  be  mentioned,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  Porto 
Rican  people,  regardless  of  party  affiliations  or  distinctions 
of  any  kind,  were  then  under  the  impression,  and  firmly 
believed  it  as  well,  because  of  the  study  they  had  made  of 
American  history  and  institutions,  and  because  also  of  the 
declarations  of  the  American  commanders,  that  Porto  Rico 
would  be  instantly  considered  and  held  to  be  a  regular  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  and  eventually  admitted  into  the 
Union  as  a  full-fledged  state  thereof,  upon  an  equal  footing 
with  the  other  states,  as  had  been  the  custom  in  this  country 
until  then?  To  this  solution  of  our  political  status  no  intel- 
ligent and  honest  Porto  Rican  would  have  made  then  any 
real  opposition;  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  one  with  common 
sense  and  having  at  heart  the  prestige,  welfare  and  happi- 
ness of  our  people  would  oppose  it  even  now,  if  the  United 
States  should  conclude  to  adopt  this  one  as  the  best  solution 
of  the  Porto  Rjcan  problem.  The  proof  that  at  that  time 
at  least  such  was  the  mental  attitude  of  Porto  Rico  is  that 
immediately  after  the  cession  formally  stipulated  in  the 
protocol  of  Washington  of  August  12,  1898,  the  newspaper 
El  Liberal,  which  used  to  be  the  organ  of  the  most  important 
Porto  Rican  party  of  that  time,  changed  its  name  for  El 
Territorio  which  means  "The  Territory,"  and  shows  con- 
clusively that  the  leaders  of  even  that  party,  which  was 
genuinely  Porto  Rican,  took  it  for  granted  and  accepted  it, 
that  the  solution  of  statehood  was  the  only  logical  and  pos- 
sible solution  of  our  status. 

And  it  could  not  be  otherwise;  because,  leaving  aside  the 
constitutional  history  of  this  country  in  that  respect  until 
then,  which  perfectly  warranted  such  an  impression  and 
belief,  what  greater  honor,  what  greater  glory,  what  greater 


346  PEDRO   CAP6  RODRIGUEZ 

happiness  and  blessings  could  befall  us  than  to  be  consid- 
ered an  integral  part  of  the  Union,  as  a  state  thereof?  It 
would  be  as  if  the  American  people  had  called  to  the  Porto 
Rican  people  and  said  to  them:  "Come  and  share  with  us 
the  great  responsibilities  of  our  government;  come  and  share 
with  us  the  serious  duties  of  working  out  the  destinies  of 
this  great  nation,  the  greatest  and  most  powerful  nation  of 
the  universe;  come  and  share  with  us  the  noble  and  beauti- 
ful task  of  upholding  and  maintaining  everywhere  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people; 
come  and  be  one  of  us!" 

Ah,  that  would  have  been,  that  was  in  reality  our  great 
political  aspiration;  that  was  our  golden  dream;  that  was 
our  childish  expectation  of  that  remote  epoch! 

The  United  States,  however,  were  very  intent  upon  some 
other  things  which  were  then  demanding  their  earnest 
attention.  In  acquiring  Porto  Rico  they  only  had  the 
immediate  purpose  of  liberating  it  from  Spain,  but  in  reality 
they  did  not  know  then,  nor  do  they  know  now,  what  they 
were  going  to  do  with  the  Island  and  its  inhabitants.  To 
be  sure,  the  acquisition  of  Porto  Rico  was  a  very  desirable 
thing  from  both  a  military  and  a  commercial  point  of  view; 
but  no  one  seems,  in  point  of  fact,  to  have  had  any  definite 
idea  as  to  the  precise  political  relations  which  were  to  exist 
in  the  future  between  the  newly  acquired  territory  and  the 
United  States.  And  it  was  perfectly  rational  that  those 
who  were  at  that  time  in  charge  of  the  government  of  this 
nation  should  feel  greatly  concerned  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  they  were  to  deal  with  the  new  acquisitions.  As  to 
the  Philippines  there  was  a  more  or  less  manifested  popular 
sentiment  against  their  permanent  incorporation  into  the 
United  States,  it  being  preferred  that  they  should  be  kept 
outside  the  constitutional  unity  of  the  nation.  It  was 
apparent,  however,  that  as  a  constitutional  proposition,  any 
rule  that  should  be  adopted  as  to  the  Philippines  must  neces- 
sarily be  applied  also  to  Porto  Rico  and  thus,  finally,  our 
Island  become  a  sort  of  an  experimental  station  where  the 
constitutionality  of  the  exclusion  of  the  Philippines  should 
be  tried  out  and  tested. 


PORTO  RICO   AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  347 

On  the  other  hand,  our  leaders  impressed  and  astounded 
with  the  entirely  unforeseen  developments  which  had  taken 
place  in  the  Island,  had  not  judged  the  occasion  propitious 
or  desirable  at  that  tragical  moment  in  our  history,  at  the 
tune  of  the  cession,  to  put  forth  any  claims  to  this  or  that 
particular  solution  of  our  future  political  status,  whether 
within  or  without  the  United  States,  which  might  hinder 
the  American  people  in  their  wonderful  work  of  liberation; 
and  although  we  were  not  consulted  as  to  our  real  and 
legitimate  desires  or  self-determination  in  the  matter,  we 
had  full  confidence  in  the  honesty  of  purpose  of  this  country, 
and  firmly  believed  that  the  cession  would  not  be  for  the 
aggrandizement  of  the  United  States,  but  for  our  mutual 
benefit,  and  that  it  would  not  only  put  an  end  to  the  ob- 
noxious rule  of  Spain  in  the  Island,  but  also  open  to  our  peo- 
ple a  new  political  horizon,  a  new  era  of  honor  and  progress 
and  happiness;  a  new  collective  life,  not  as  a  mere  colony 
which  we  had  been  under  Spain  in  spite  of  our  political  status 
as  a  province,  but  as  a  sovereign  state  of  the  Union,  some 
tune  in  the  near  or  the  distant  future,  as  a  people  masters 
of  our  own  internal  affairs  and  indissolubly  united  to  the 
American  people  with  the  honorable  bands  of  a  common 
constitution  and  a  common  government  and  purpose  in 
everything  national. 

A  few  months  later,  however,  after  the  acquisition,  and 
when  the  ink  on  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  by  which  the  cession 
had  been  accomplished,  was  scarcely  dried  on  the  paper, 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  hopelessly  divided 
in  opinion,  established,  for  the  first  time  in  the  constitu- 
tional history  of  this  country,  a  terrible  distinction  between 
those  territories  which  were  held  to  have  been  incorporated 
into  the  United  States  by  the  will  or  consent  of  Congress, 
and  those  other  territories  newly  acquired  by  the  treaty 
making  power  or  otherwise  which  had  not  yet  been  incor- 
porated into  the  United  States.  The  former  were  held  to 
be  integral  parts  of  the  United  States,  while  the  latter 
were  said  to  be  mere  territorial  possessions,  or,  more  accur- 
ately, in  the  words  of  the  Court,  territory  appurtenant  and 
belonging  to  the  United  States.  And  in  this  manner 


348  PEDRO   CAP  6  RODRfGUEZ 

Porto  Rico  was  held  to  be  included  within  the  last  classi- 
fication, that  is  to  say,  that  the  Island  is  no  part  of  the 
United  States  but  a  mere  subject  of  property,  something 
which  the  United  States  owns  to  do  with  as  it  shall  see  fit, 
and  thus,  substantially,  that  Porto  Rico  is  beyond  the  pale 
of  the  Constitution  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  operative  in 
the  Island,  except  insofar  as  it  may  deprive  Congress  of 
power  to  do  some  specific  thing — a  political  status  theo- 
retically inferior  to  the  one  we  had  under  Spain. 

This  decision,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was  not  at  all  satis- 
factory and  had  a  very  distressing  effect  upon  our  people. 
It  was  really  disappointing,  and  did  cause  among  us  a 
feeling  of  hurt  to  our  pride,  and  to  our  national  "amour 
propre"  as  a  people.  But  the  most  lamentable  thing  about 
this  decision  is  that  it  brought  to  our  people  a  complete 
disorientation  as  to  our  political  aspirations,  placing  us  in  a 
situation  of  uncertainty  as  to  the  real  intentions  of  the 
American  people  in  respect  to  our  future  relations.  Thus 
we  have  divided  in  opinion,  and  can  only  wonder  what  the 
ultimate  decision  may  be  upon  this  matter. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  new  constitutional  doctrine 
of  incorporation,  or  non-incorporation,  formulated  by  Mr. 
Justice  White  in  the  Insular  Cases  was  clearly  advisable 
and  even  necessary  as  a  constitutional  asset  for  the  ready 
solution  of  a  multitude  of  problems  which  soon  became 
apparent  in  the  proper  management  of  the  Philippine  Islands 
and  even  perhaps  in  Porto  Rico;  there  is  no  question  that 
such  a  doctrine  is  very  desirable  and  even  commendable  as 
providing,  very  wisely  and  properly,  for  the  contingencies 
of  the  future  in  the  development  of  what  another  great 
American  jurist  had  been  pleased  to  call  a  good  many  years 
earlier  the  "American  Empire."  Furthermore,  that  doc- 
trine was  in  reality  the  handmaid  of  a  wise  and  judicious 
solution  of  the  problem  involved  in  the  future  disposition 
to  be  made  of  the  Island  and  its  inhabitants.  But  that 
decision  was  not  well  understood  in  Porto  Rico  as  it  was  not 
well  understood  outside  of  the  Island,  and  it  has  caused  a 
great  deal  of  harm  to  our  people.  We  feel  just  like  a  man 
lost  in  the  woods,  at  the  mercy  of  his  guide.  We  do  not 


PORTO   RICO   AS   A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  349 

know  what  path  to  take;  we  do  not  know  what  to  do,  and  we 
must  constantly  depend  upon  your  advice,  upon  your  words 
of  counsel,  whether  you  really  mean  what  you  say  or  not. 

If  the  Supreme  Court  had  declared  twenty  years  ago  that 
Porto  Rico  was  a  regular  territory  of  the  United  States 
instead  of  establishing,  as  it  did,  a  distinction  of  so-called 
incorporation  between  Porto  Rico  and  the  other  territories 
of  the  United  States,  with  all  its  constitutional  results,  our 
position  would  have  been  made  very  definite  and  clear,  and 
then  we  would  have  striven  during  these  same  twenty  years 
to  attain  as  soon  as  possible  the  complete  status  of  state- 
hood within  this  great  union  of  sovereign  States.  As  the 
situation  is  today,  we  do  not  know  in  what  direction  to 
strive;  for  the  United  States  may  ultimately  decide  for  one 
thing  or  for  another.  Congress,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
procrastinated  and  made  this  uncertainty  more  acute  and 
intense,  not  only  by  deliberately  abstaining  from  making 
any  positive  declaration  as  to  the  present  or  future  status 
of  Porto  Rico,  but  also  by  establishing  in  Porto  Rico  a 
mixture  of  a  territorial  and  colonial  form  of  government, 
and  extending  to  Porto  Ricans  the  privilege  of  American 
citizenship.  And  in  this  way  no  one  in  the  Island  or  the 
United  States  can  tell  with  any  degree  of  certainty  what 
the  permanent  relations  of  Porto  Rico  and  the  United 
States  will  be  in  the  future. 

The  general  inference  in  this  country  in  respect  to  this 
point  is,  insofar  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  that 
Porto  Rico  will  sooner  or  later  follow  the  same  course  as 
has  been  followed  by  all  the  other  territories  acquired  by 
the  United  States  in  the  past.  To  this  seems  to  lend  color 
the  granting  of  American  citizenship  to  Porto  Ricans  as  the 
first  step  in  that  direction.  But  this  is  only  a  mere  infer- 
ence founded,  as  a  rule,  on  no  definite  process  of  reasoning 
which  would  necessarily  lead  to  that  result.  American  citi- 
zenship is  a  thing  entirely  independent  from  the  political 
status  of  the  Island,  as  has  been  clearly  shown  in  two 
Porto  Rican  cases  recently  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court.4 

4  The  People  of  Porto  Rico,  et  al,  vs.  Tapia,  and  the  People  of  Porto 
Rico  vs.  Muratti,  245  U.  S.  639,  decided  per  curiam. 


350  PEDRO  CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

Even  as  American  citizens  we  continue  to  occupy  today  the 
same  indefinite  position  as  before.  Our  Island  is  no  part 
of  the  United  States,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
it  will  ever  be. 

Occasionally  one  hears  the  opinion  expressed  that  the 
American  flag  will  never  come  down  in  the  Island,  and  that 
Porto  Rico  will  always  be  held  as  a  colony  or  possession  of 
the  United  States;  and  that  in  this  sense  our  political  status 
is  right  now  perfectly  well  defined.  In  the  same  connection 
it  is  contended  that  such  a  political  status  is  perfectly  con- 
stitutional and  well  known  and  accepted  in  international 
law  and  practice;  so  that  juridically  as  well  as  politically 
it  might  be  said  that  the  problem  is  already  solved,  and  that 
the  only  thing  which  now  remains  is  to  extend  to  Porto  Rico 
complete  self  government  in  an  administrative  sense  with- 
out the  interference  of  the  federal  government. 

There  is  also  the  opinion  that  Porto  Rico  will  be  ulti- 
mately established  as  a  free  and  independent  sovereign 
state.  It  is  said  that  the  idea  of  perpetual  colonialism  is 
entirely  repulsive  to  the  American  mind,  that  it  cannot  be 
conceived  that  a  people  who  only  yesterday  shook  off  that 
form  of  government  should  today  so  easily  adopt  in  respect 
to  Porto  Rico  a  policy  involving  a  principle  which  they 
would  not  have  applied  to  themselves. 

But  all  these  opinions  have  practically  the  same  founda- 
tion as  the  solution  of  statehood.  In  my  estimation,  and 
so  far  as  I  can  make  out  the  situation,  none  of  these  opin- 
ions, whether  in  one  direction  or  another  can  claim  more 
real  authority  than  the  personal  prestige  of  those  who  are 
bold  enough  to  assume  the  r61e  of  prophets  at  this  tune,  and 
therefore  can  not  be  given  too  much  importance  either  way, 
for  the  reason  that,  as  a  rule,  as  already  suggested,  they  are 
merely  founded  on  personal  impressions  of  the  moment 
and,  in  consequence,  lack  that  careful  consideration  and 
study  which  is  in  reality  the  thing  that  gives  personal  opin- 
ions their  greatest  value.  In  so  far  as  the  American  people 
is  concerned,  I  should  say  that  save  for  a  small  group  of 
men,  mostly  composed  of  prejudiced  bureaucrats  and  offi- 
cials or  ex-officials  of  the  American  administration  in  Porto 


PORTO  RICO  AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  351 

Rico,  who  would  like  to  see  perpetuated  the  present  order 
of  things  in  the  Island,  and  perhaps  some  rather  impulsive 
members  of  Congress  who  do  not  hesitate  to  suggest  the 
solution  of  independence  as  the  logical  one,  and  some  other 
members  of  Congress  connected  with  the  committees  in 
charge  of  Porto  Rican  affairs  in  both  Houses  of  Congress 
who  certainly  are,  as  a  rule,  quite  remiss  in  expressing  any 
positive  views  as  to  the  future  for  publication,  probably 
because  they  they  do  not  wish  to  commit  themselves  to 
any  particular  policy  at  this  time,  there  is  no  intelligent 
public  opinion  in  this  country  upon  such  an  important  and 
urgent  national  problem  as  the  determination  of  the  future 
relations  which  ought  to  exist  between  Porto  Rico  and  the 
United  States.  The  matter  has  been  neglected  so  long  that 
the  people  of  this  country  have  come  to  look  upon  Porto 
Rico  as  some  sort  of  a  little  ward  of  the  United  States,  re- 
ceiving its  protection  and  enjoying  everything  which  Ameri- 
can bounty  and  generosity  can  give  away,  without  worrying 
about  anything  else. 

But  that  very  attitude  of  the  American  people  is  very 
harmful  to  us  in  more  than  one  way.  It  hurts  us  collectively 
as  a  people,  and  in  our  individual  life  as  men,  as  Porto 
Ricans,  as  American  citizens.  It  hurts  us  in  our  concep- 
tions of  right;  it  hurts  us  in  our  pride,  it  hurts  us  in  our 
interests.  In  t^wenty  years  of  constant  activity  under  the 
American  flag,  we  have  developed,  as  I  said  before,  a  long 
way  beyond  all  expectations.  We  have  done  great  credit 
to  ourselves  and  to  the  United  States.  Without  our  col- 
laboration, without  our  efforts,  American  rule  in  the  Island 
might  have  been  perhaps  very  successful,  owing  to  the  great 
capacity  of  the  American  people  in  matters  of  government; 
but  the  record  would  not  have  been  so  brilliant,  and  they 
would  not  feel  so  proud  of  it  as  they  naturally  do.  There 
are,  however,  those  who  persist  in  believing  that  we  are 
mere  children,  that  we  still  need  over  our  heads  the  rule  of 
a  school  master  who  shall  constantly  tell  us  what  to  do  in 
our  local  affairs;  that  somehow  we  are  not  as  yet  prepared 
to  take  upon  our  own  shoulders  the  serious  responsibilities 
of  our  own  government,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  our  rec- 
ord shows  that  the  opposite  is  the  truth. 


352  PEDRO   CAP  6  RODRfGUEZ 

If  the  true  test  of  preparation  of  a  people  for  self  govern- 
ment is  the  attitude  of  that  people  towards  law  and  order 
and  the  estabilization  of  governmental  things,  we  certainly 
are  better  prepared  than  a  good  many  so-called  independent 
nations  and  even  some  of  the  states.  In  Porto  Rico  we  do 
not  have,  we  do  not  know,  those  organized  subversions  of 
the  public  peace,  which  are  so  characteristic  in  Central  Amer- 
ican countries  in  the  form  of  armed  revolutions  and  insur- 
rections against  their  governments,  and  so  peculiar  in  some 
of  the  states  of  the  Union  in  the  form  of  public  lynchings, 
which  are  manifestations  of  popular  disrespect  towards  the 
normal  processes  of  law  and  order.  In  Porto  Rico  we  do 
not  approve  of  these  things.  In  the  practical  exercise  of 
self-government,  in  the  measure  which  so  far  has  been 
granted  to  us,  we  have  learned  a  great  deal  in  self-restraint; 
our  officials,  our  political  parties,  our  leaders  and  our  people 
in  general,  have  learned  the  lessons  of  tolerance,  patience 
and  mutual  respect.  And  yet  you  still  procrastinate,  until 
the  good  work  would  seem  to  begin  to  spoil.  The  attitude 
of  the  American  people  on  this  important  problem  of  what 
to  do  with  Porto  Rico  can  lead  nowhere  but  to  deep  mis- 
understanding, ill  feeling  and  unrest. 

I  should  not  like  to  appear  as  giving  expression  to  senti- 
ments of  antagonism  and  resentment,  nor  to  foster  the  im- 
pression that  we  have  lost  the  least  faith  in  the  American 
people.  My  purpose  is  merely  to  show  that  there  is  a  se- 
rious problem  to  deal  with  in  Porto  Rico;  a  problem  which  is 
really  of  deep  national  interest,  more  so,  perhaps,  than 
many  others  which  engage  their  attention  at  this  time. 
That  problem  ought  to  be  solved  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
people  of  Porto  Rico  are  entitled  to  know  and  they  ought 
to  be  told,  as  soon  as  possible,  what  it  is  that  they  must  ex- 
pect, so  that  they  may  adjust  their  life  to  that  expectation. 
For  this  purpose,  the  people  in  this  country  should  make  up 
then*  mind  and  study  seriously  the  different  solutions  of 
this  problem  and  choose  that  one  which  seems  to  them  more 
in  harmony  with  their  interests  and  the  equities  of  the  situ- 
ation. There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  acquisition 
of  Porto  Rico  from  Spain  was  entirely  justified  from  a 


PORTO  RICO   AS  A   NATIONAL   PROBLEM  353 

historical  and  moral  point  of  view.  But  the  maintenance 
of  the  present  state  of  things  in  the  Island  is  indeed  some- 
thing which  cannot  in  any  way  be  even  excused,  and  must 
eventually  hurt  the  cause  o  the  United  States  in  this 
hemisphere. 

Ill 

In  so  far  as  our  political  parties  in  the  Island  are  con- 
cerned, they  have  formulated  several  solutions  which,  in  a 
large  measure,  show  how  hopelessly  divided  public  opinion 
is  in  the  Island  upon  this  important  question,  although,  as 
already  suggested,  their  division  arises  out  of  the  uncer- 
tainty of  the  American  people  upon  the  matter.  Thus  there 
is  a  political  party  which  has  in  its  platform  the  solution  of 
statehood  for  Porto  Rico.  This  party,  which  is  the  so- 
called  Republican  Party,  affiliated  with  the  Republican 
Party  of  the  United  States,  has  consistently  maintained  for 
nearly  twenty  years  that  statehood  is  the  only  possible 
solution  of  the  problem  consistent  with  American  principles 
and  traditions,  and  with  the  best  interests  of  the  Island. 
As  a  matter  of  principle,  it  would  accept  independence  rather 
than  perpetual  colonialism.  Another  political  party,  which 
is  the  Independentist  Party,  while  not  professedly  anti- 
American,  claims  that  the  real  aspiration  of  the  Porto 
Rican  people  is  to  be  constituted  into  a  free  and  independent 
republic  of  their  own,  under  a  sort  of  a  virtual  protectorate 
after  the  fashion  of  Cuba,  with  such  concessions  by  the 
Island  in  favor  of  the  United  States  as  may  be  deemed 
necessary  by  the  two  peoples  in  mutual  accord,  and  such 
guarantees  of  independence  and  protection  from  the  United 
States  in  favor  of  Porto  Rico  as  may  also  be  deemed  neces- 
sary or  advisable.  There  is  lastly  another  party  claiming 
to  be  the  party  of  the  majority  in  the  Island,  the  so-called 
Unionist  Party,  which,  while  professing  to  stand  for  the 
ultimate  independence  of  Porto  Rico,  would  prefer  to  make 
haste  slowly,  and,  for  the  time  being,  accept  a  solution  of 
complete  self  government  in  an  administrative  sense,  as  a 
means  of  doing  away  with  the  present  state  of  things. 


354  PEDRO   CAP  6   RODRfGUEZ 

I  will  not  undertake  to  examine  at  this  time  the  multi- 
tude of  reasons  which  may  be  advanced  in  favor  and  against 
each  one  of  these  several  solutions  proposed  by  the  Porto 
Rican  parties  from  both  a  Porto  Rican  and  an  American 
point  of  view,  for  although  that  would  be  perfectly  within 
the  scope  of  this  paper,  yet  as  a  practical  proposition  it 
would  be  impossible  to  do  so  for  lack  of  space.  I  will  say, 
however,  that  the  acquisition  of  Porto  Rico  by  the  United 
States  as  a  direct  result  of  the  Spanish  American  War,  has 
given  to  that  Island  such  a  tremendous  political  importance 
in  the  Western  Hemisphere  that  Congress  would  not  be 
discharging  its  duty  to  the  nation  if  it  did  not  take  advan- 
tage of  the  opportunity  which  Providence  has  thus  placed 
in  its  hands  to  greatly  improve  the  relations  of  this  country 
with  Latin  America.  It  should  be  realized,  as  soon  as 
possible,  that  the  acquisition  of  Porto  Rico  is  not,  like  the 
acquisition  of  the  Virgin  Islands,  of  little  political  concern 
to  the  Latin-American  Republics.  The  Virgin  Islands  are 
more  or  less  a  series  of  little  islands  and  keys  with  a  popu- 
lation of  about  35,000,  only  3  per  cent  of  which  are  whites, 
the  rest  being  negroes,  with  a  historical  background  foreign 
to  that  of  the  Latin- American  republics.  The  population  of 
those  islands  scarcely  could  be  called  a  people.  They  are, 
besides,  in  an  inferior  state  of  civilization.  Porto  Rico  is 
different.  As  I  have  already  suggested,  Porto  Rico  has  a 
population  of  over  a  million  and  a  quarter  inhabitants, 
more  than  62  per  cent  of  which  are  whites.  We  are  one 
of  the  peoples  of  Latin  America.  In  fact,  we  have  na- 
tional aspirations  as  a  people  distinctly  Porto  Rican.  It 
must  follow,  therefore,  that  however  indifferent  those  re- 
publics may  appear  to  our  lot,  their  peoples  and  govern- 
ments are  surely  watching  with  profound  interest  the  grad- 
ual development  of  our  relations  with  the  United  States. 
In  Porto  Rico  then,  there  is  for  this  country  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity to  destroy  prejudices  and  suspicions  which  have 
become  historical,  and  to  promote  mutual  confidence  and 
friendship,  and  consequently,  better  relations  between  those 
republics  and  the  United  States. 


PORTO   RICO   AS   A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  355 

The  solutions  offered  by  the  political  parties  of  Porto  Rico 
may  well  be  taken,  in  my  opinion,  as  the  starting  point  in 
the  consideration  of  the  problem,  bearing  however  in  mind 
that,  in  so  far  as  the  Porto  Rican  people  are  concerned,  re- 
gardless of  party  politics,  and  save  isolated  cases  of  personal 
likes  and  dislikes  for  this  or  that  solution,  they  all  would, 
generally  speaking,  accept  any  one  of  those  solutions  which, 
aside  from  material  advantages  or  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  each  of  them  separately,  would,  no  doubt,  bring  us 
assurance  of  future  repose  and  contentment,  as  well  as 
prestige  and  honor  to  the  Island  and  its  inhabitants.  For 
this  reason  I  believe  that  solution  of  the  problem  rests 
entirely  with  the  United  States.  Of  course  a  plebiscite  to 
ascertain  the  will  of  the  Porto  Rican  people  might  not  be 
entirely  amiss.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the  political 
parties  might  not  try  to  make  capital  out  of  it,  with  the 
result  that  even  if  the  plebiscite  was  carried  out  in  good 
faith  and  without  fraud,  violence  or  intimidation,  nothing 
materially  substantial  might  be  gained  by  this  extraordinary 
and  unreliable  process,  since  it  would  only  show  what  every- 
body knows  already,  namely,  that  we  are  hopelessly  divided 
as  to  these  things.  I  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  a  better 
way  would  be  to  consult  learned  public  opinion  in  the  Island, 
in  so  far  as  the  self  determination  of  the  Porto  Rican  people 
is  concerned. 

Personally,  P  believe  that  Porto  Rico,  as  a  whole  and  as 
a  people,  is  entirely  fit  and  prepared,  socially,  politically 
and  economically,  to  assume  and  discharge  the  obligations 
and  responsibilities  of  a  self-governing  people,  whether  as  a 
state  of  this  Union,  an  independent  republic,  or  a  completely 
autonomous  commonwealth  under  the  sovereignty  of  the 
United  States,  after  the  fashion  of  the  British  Dominions 
but  more  in  harmony  with  the  republican  institutions  of 
the  United  States.  To  my  mind,  the  question  is  not  there- 
fore of  preparation  and  fitness  of  the  Porto  Rican  people 
for  the  task  of  governing  themselves  under  any  of  those 
forms  of  government,  and  for  this  reason  I  would  like  to 
see  that  element  entirely  dropped  from  all  intelligent  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject.  To  continue  harping  on  this  cord  is 


356  PEDRO   CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

merely  to  imitate  the  old  and  discredited  methods  of  Spain. 
That  Spain  should  try  to  make  us  appear  as  a  people  wholly 
unprepared  and  incapable  to  manage  our  own  affairs,  is 
something  which  can  surprise  no  one;  for  such  was  always 
the  moral  pretext  advanced  by  colonizing  nations  for  hold- 
ing foreign  territories  and  peoples  under  their  domination 
and  rule,  and,  besides,  her  very  sovereignty  and  govern- 
ment in  Porto  Rico  was  really  dependent  on  this  assumption 
of  a  lack  of  preparation  and  incapacity  on  the  part  of  the 
Porto  Rican  people.  This  is  amply  shown  to  be  so  by  an 
examination  of  the  diplomatic  history  of  the  relations  of 
the  United  States  with  Spain  in  respect  to  Cuba  as  well  as 
Porto  Rico.  But  with  the  record  made  by  Porto  Rico  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years  before  our  eyes,  it  would  be  idle 
and  rank  nonsense  to  talk  of  those  things. 

Some  say  that  this  record  made  by  Porto  Rico  in  this 
short  period  of  tune  is  not  really  creditable  to  Porto  Ricans, 
but  to  the  American  officials  who  have  been  sent  to  the 
Island  to  occupy  the  highest  and  most  lucrative  positions 
in  our  government;  but  that  is  not  so.  The  truth  is  that 
some  of  those  officials  have  been  really  inspiring  to  Porto 
Ricans  hi  their  fervent  desire  to  help  our  people  in  their 
titanic  struggle  to  lift  themselves  to  their  present  state  of 
development.  Those,  no  doubt,  we  honor  and  hold  dear 
in  our  hearts.  But  others,  fortunately  few,  of  those  same 
officials,  who  have  been  sent  to  occupy  the  highest  and 
most  lucrative  positions  in  our  government,  have  been  an 
obnoxious  hindrance  and  great  obstacles  to  our  develop- 
ment. It  is  in  spite  of  those  officials  that  we  have  made  the 
honorable  record  of  which  we  feel  so  proud  during  this  last 
twenty  years.  For  them,  however,  we  have  no  resentment, 
but  rather  gratitude,  for  in  their  strange  ways  and  behavior 
they  have  taught  us  their  lesson  which,  undoubtedly,  has 
made  us  wiser  and  will  do  us  much  good  in  the  future. 

IV 

To  approach  the  consideration  of  our  subject  from  a 
proper  angle,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  must,  in  the  first  place, 
discard  unjustifiable  prejudices,  and  then  examine  the  facts 


PORTO   RICO   AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  357 

in  as  cool  and  dispassionate  a  fashion  as  may  be  possible, 
from  the  standpoint  of  right  and  the  situations  of  fact  as 
well  as  of  convenience  for  both  Porto  Rico  and  the  United 
States,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  policy  that  may  be  eventu- 
ally adopted  in  respect  to  Porto  Rico  will  be  not  only  a 
precedent  which  shall  govern  the  action  of  the  government 
in  the  future,  in  the  gradual  development  of  this  nation,  but 
will  also  be  taken  as  an  index  by  the  South  and  Central 
American  Republics  of  the  real  attitude  of  the  United  States 
towards  them. 

If  the  policy  of  the  United  States  is  of  complete  absorp- 
tion of  our  people,  which  I  seriously  doubt  very  much,  their 
suspicions  of  continental  absorption  by  you  will  be  in  a  way 
corroborated  by  your  attitude.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
policy  of  this  country  has  an  undoubted  tendency  to  recog- 
nize, and  to  deal  with  us  upon  the  recognition,  that  we  are 
a  people,  with  a  God  given  right  to  pursue  our  own  way  of 
life,  according  to  our  own  racial  conceptions  of  culture  and 
civilization;  happy,  contented,  unafraid,  in  the  manage- 
ment of  our  own  government,  the  friends  of  the  United 
States  will  always  point  out  with  pride  to  Porto  Rico  as  the 
best  proof  of  the  real  sentiments  and  aspirations  of  the 
American  people  in  our  Continent.  It  will  then  be  corrob- 
orated by  actual  experience  the  American  ideal  which  was 
expounded  at  different  times  and  under  different  forms  by 
Monroe,  Lincoln,  Roosevelt  and  Wilson,  and  which  might 
be  expressed  by  saying  that:  "Every  people  ought  to  be  per- 
mitted to  govern  themselves  free  from  foreign  interference,  pro- 
vided they  live  up  to  the  standards  established  by  the  law  of 
nations  and  the  dictates  of  civilization." 

Now,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  so,  in  my  opinion,  the 
solution  of  statehood  is  not  a  practical  solution  either  from 
a  Porto  Rican  or  a  purely  American  point  of  view.  His- 
torically, and  as  a  matter  of  policy,  the  United  States  has 
always  been  opposed  to  the  incorporation  into  the  Union 
of  noncontiguous  territories  upon  an  equal  footing  with  the 
States.  There  are  those  who  contend  that  politically  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  incorporate  a  people  historically  and 
ethnologically,  as  well  as  geographically,  entirely  different 


358  PEDRO  CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

and  separate  from  the  people  of  the  United  States;  a  people 
having  their  own  character,  idiosyncrasies,  racial  tempera- 
ment, mental  processes  and  ideals,  with  practically  no  point 
of  contact  whatever  with  the  character,  idiosyncrasies, 
racial  temperament,  mental  processes  and  ideals  of  the 
American  people;  a  people  who,  leaving  aside  the  mutual 
bonds  of  friendship  and  affection,  is  bound  to  the  American 
people  by  no  other  ties  than  political  and  commercial  ones; 
a  people  who  could  never  be  assimilated  in  the  sense  of 
casting  aside,  as  a  useless  garment,  their  own  make-up,  and 
assume  a  new  one  identical  to  the  American  people's.  There 
is  no  question  that  we  are  of  a  different  constitution  than 
the  American  people,  and  so  we  cannot  think  and  feel  as 
they  do.  But  all  this  is  perhaps  a  mooted  question,  and 
may  turn  out  to  be  nothing  but  a  mere  prejudice,  without 
any  real  foundation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  power  of 
adaptation  of  our  people  may  have  a  substantial  bearing 
upon  the  matter. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  it  would  not  be  an  easy  task  to 
crush  hi  them  all  their  heritage,  aspirations  and  ideals  by  a 
process  of  forced  Americanization  and  thus  make  them 
break  entirely  loose  from  their  past,  from  their  traditions, 
from  the  promptings  of  their  very  nature.  There  is  no 
question  that  the  complete  Americanization  of  other  Spanish 
territories  has  been  possible  in  the  past  only  because  those 
territories  were  contiguous  and  practically  unpeopled  at 
the  time  of  their  acquisition.  Porto  Rico  is  overpopulated; 
it  has  a  population  of  over  one  million  and  a  quarter,  or 
nearly  an  average  of  340  inhabitants  to  the  square  mile. 
The  American  inhabitants  of  the  Island  do  not  exceed  3000 
or  4000,  and  their  number  is  constantly  decreasing;  so  that 
their  influence  could  not  bring  about  a  complete  change  in 
the  character  of  the  people  as  in  some  of  the  former  Spanish 
territories.  But  all  this  when  rightly  viewed,  is  not  an 
unsurmountable  obstacle  for  the  solution  of  statehood,  be- 
cause in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  although  there  may  be 
found  entire  communities  where  the  people  still  speak 
nothing  but  the  Spanish  language,  and  live  in  the  traditions 
and  customs  of  their  race,  surrounded  by  everything  Span- 


PORTO  RICO   AS  A  NATIONAL   PROBLEM  359 

ish,  there  are  no  signs  there  that  should  point  out  to  a  mis- 
take in  the  incorporation  of  those  territories  as  States  of 
the  Union. 

And  yet,  I  seriously  doubt  that  the  solution  of  statehood 
is  at  all  practical  or  desirable  for  Porto  Rico,  above  all 
because  it  seems  to  me  that  such  a  solution  is  not  at  heart 
desired  by  the  people  of  the  United  States,  at  least  for  the 
time  being,  as  an  immediate  solution  of  the  problem  to  be 
applied  now.  It  would  be  probably  expected  that  Porto 
Rico  should  first  pass  through  a  probationary  period  of 
territorial  condition,  and  that  we  should  keep,  for  an  in- 
definite length  of  time,  three  or  four  generations  perhaps, 
knocking  at  the  door  to  be  permitted  to  enter  the  Union  on 
an  equal  footing  with  the  other  states,  as  has  been  usually 
the  practice  in  the  past.  But  this  would  not  be  really  a 
solution  of  the  problem  at  all.  Porto  Rico  is  already  pre- 
pared to  be  a  state  of  the  Union,  and  if  such  should  be  the 
solution  given  to  the  problem,  it  would  have  to  be  adopted 
in  a  very  short  time,  so  that  it  could  benefit  the  present  gen- 
erations who  are  most  deserving  because  of  their  successful 
efforts  to  bring  Porto  Rico  to  its  present  condition  of 
development  and  capacity  for  self-government.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  solution  of  statehood  means  a  permanent 
and  indissoluble  relation  which  cannot  be  abandoned  once 
it  has  been  established  between  us;  and  therefore,  if  later 
on,  for  one  cause  or  another,  likely  to  arise  in  the  resulting 
process  of  the  complete  absorption  of  our  people  in  the 
national  life  of  the  United  States,  this  solution  should  turn 
out  to  be  injurious  and  even  ruinous  to  us  from  the  point 
of  view  of  our  own  regional  life  as  a  Porto  Rican  people, 
there  would  be  absolutely  no  means  of  remedying  such  a 
situation,  unless  there  should  come  about  some  unconceiv- 
able change  in  the  political  structure  of  the  nation.  If  such 
a  situation  should  arrive,  it  seems  to  me,  the  union  between 
Porto  Rico  and  the  United  States  would  not  mean  greater 
strength  or  benefit  for  the  nation,  but  it  would  rather  be 
productive  of  weakness  and  detriment. 

My  doubts  in  reality  do  not  arise  from  any  fear  whatso- 
ever as  to  the  good  sense  or  absolute  loyalty  of  the  Porto 


360  PEDRO   CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

Rican  people  to  the  United  States;  nor  that  they  may  not 
love  the  American  flag  and  institutions  as  their  own.  No; 
my  doubts  arise  from  the  conviction  I  have  that  the  spirit 
of  race  is  sure  to  react  sooner  or  later  against  any  thing  which 
may  seem  injurious  or  obnoxious  to  their  self-determination 
in  their  progressive  development  as  a  people.  I  am  sure  in 
my  mind  of  that  reaction,  and  fear  that  it  might  show  up 
when  there  is  no  effective  remedy  against  it,  after  the  con- 
dition of  Statehood  should  bring  into  real  conflict  our  re- 
gional interests  with  the  general  interests  of  the  United 
States.  I  do  not  fear  anything  for  the  present,  but  I  do 
fear  for  the  future  when  our  people  should  feel  themselves 
tied  forever,  not  merely  to  the  great  destiny  of  this  great 
nation  which  eventually  must  be  unavoidably  ours,  but 
tied  to  all  American  institutions,  to  all  American  laws,  to 
all  American  practices  of  government,  to  all  American  turns 
in  the  political,  economical  and  social  life  of  the  United 
States  as  a  nation. 

I  am,  therefore,  of  the  opinion — and  by  it  -I  do  not  intend 
to  convince  nor  to  support  or  attack  anybody — that  all 
attempts  made  along  this  line  must  necessarily  result  in 
failure.  To  endeavor,  for  instance,  to  change  the  language 
of  Porto  Ricans,  to  suppress  what  is  Spanish  in  them,  to 
make  them  thoroughly  American,  in  disregard  of  their  his- 
tory, temperament  and  peculiarities  of  race,  in  disregard  of 
the  experience  of  humanity,  seems  to  me  must  be  condemned 
as  unwise  and  unnecessary.  I  do  not  believe  that  any 
practical  results  could  be  attained  by  this  solution  of  the 
problem.  To  be  sure,  Porto  Ricans  are  fast  learning  the 
English  language,  but  that  is  not  the  language  of  the  home, 
of  the  community  at  large.  That  is  the  language  of  con- 
venience, the  language  people  are  learning  as  a  profitable 
accomplishment  in  their  general  education,  and  because 
that  language — why  should  I  not  say  it? — is  being  largely 
forced  upon  the  people  as  a  policy  of  rapid  Americanization, 
which  I  consider  rather  premature  until  the  American  people 
shall  determine  what  is  ultimately  to  be  done  with  Porto 
Rico.  In  my  opinion,  the  most  which  can  be  obtained  in 
reality  is  that  the  Porto  Rican  people  shall  become  Ameri- 


PORTO  RICO  AS  A  NATIONAL  PROBLEM  361 

canized  in  the  sense  of  having  a  profound  love  and  venera- 
tion for  the  American  flag  and  institutions  and  adopt  the 
American  point  of  view  on  questions  of  a  national  nature, 
and  above  all  that  the  United  States  can  always  count  on 
their  complete  loyalty,  cooperation  and  friendship. 

That  is  my  opinion,  and  I  express  it  with  candor,  not  only 
as  a  Porto  Rican,  with  the  authority  which  the  study  which 
I  have  made  of  these  things  gives  me  to  speak,  but  also  as 
an  American  citizen  and  with  all  the  love  and  loyalty  which 
I  owe  to  this  great  nation,  not  only  because  of  my  citizen- 
ship, but  also  because  I  have  here  many  things  which  are 
very  near  to  my  heart,  and  because  I  wish  to  see  this  prob- 
lem of  what  to  do  with  Porto  Rico  solved  in  a  just  and  sat- 
isfactory manner  both  to  my  own  people  and  to  this  country 
where  my  wife  and  children  were  born. 

I  firmly  believe  that  hi  attempting  a  solution  to  this 
problem  we  must  take  into  consideration  many  questions  of 
a  national  and  international  nature,  which  must  alter  or 
modify  not  only  our  impressions  of  the  moment,  but  also 
our  most  cherished  ideals  and  aspirations,  if  we  are  to 
regard  as  paramount  the  highest  interests  of  both  Porto 
Rico  and  the  United  States. 

It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  in  dealing  with  human 
nature,  it  is  better  to  let  the  processes  of  self-determination 
shape  the  course  of  human  conduct.  The  American  people 
can  very  well  harmonize  their  own  interests  with  ours,  with- 
out destroying  our  personality,  without  destroying  us  as  a 
people.  We  are  more  than  willing,  we  are  eager,  to  collab- 
orate with  the  United  States;  we  will  serve  the  American 
people  better  if  they  follow  this  course  than  otherwise.  We 
may  be  the  point  of  contact  of  the  two  great  races  which 
populate  our  great  continent;  we  may  be  the  index  of  a 
greater  and  true  Pan-American  solidarity;  we  may  be,  as 
it  were,  the  interpreter  which  puts  into  communication  and 
carries  intelligence  between  two  different  peoples,  destroy- 
ing misunderstandings  and  unfounded  prejudices  and  ani- 
mosities and  causes  of  suspicion  and  distrust  among  them. 

But  if,  in  spite  of  these  warnings  of  moderation  and  good 
sense,  it  should  be  considered  wise  or  necessary  that  we 


362  PEDRO  CAP6  RODRfGUEZ 

should  enter  the  Union  as  a  full  fledged  state  thereof,  the 
Porto  Rican  people  are  entitled  to  know  it  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, so  that  they  may  adjust  their  collective  and  individual 
life  to  that  finality;  and  above  all,  no  fear  should  be  enter- 
tained that  we  might  reject  such  a  decision.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  shall  rejoice  at  and  feel  very  proud  of  it,  because 
in  that  manner  the  American  people  shall  have  bestowed 
upon  us  a  very  great  honor  which  we  shall  appreciate,  and 
then  we  shall  try  to  do  our  best  not  to  disappoint  them  in 
their  expectations. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  it  should  be  determined  not  to  make 
us  a  state  of  the  Union,  nor  to  establish  our  people  as  an 
independent  government,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  but 
preferred  that  the  American  flag  shall  continue  to  wave  in 
Porto  Rico  as  the  symbol  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States  over  the  Island,  leaving  to  future  generations  the 
complete  solution  of  the  problem,  the  people  of  Porto  Rico 
should  be  told  of  it  as  soon  as  possible;  and  in  the  mean- 
time we  should  be  given  the  right  to  govern  ourselves  fully 
and  with  as  little  interference  from  the  United  States  in  our 
local  affairs  as  possible.  We  should  be  given  the  right  to 
choose  our  own  government  officials,  so  that  they  may  be 
directly  responsible  to  our  people;  and  in  national  matters 
which  must  affect  our  collective  life  as  a  people,  the  United 
States  should  not  impose  the  laws  of  this  country  upon  us 
as  a  burden;  we  should  be  given  the  opportunity  to  pass 
upon  those  laws  in  their  application  to  our  Island;  we  should 
be  given  a  voice  in  the  initiation  and  acceptance  of  such  of 
the  treaties  of  this  country  as  must  affect  us;  we  should 
be  given  freedom  of  action,  we  should  be  given  liberty,  and 
the  opportunity  to  make  good  and  grow  to  be  a  prosperous, 
respected,  happy  and  contented  people,  not  by  dictation, 
but  by  generosity,  by  a  noble  guidance,  by  the  sense  of  a 
square  deal,  by  the  recognition  of  the  self  evident  proposi- 
tion that  we  are  a  people  fully  prepared  to  assume  the 
full  responsibilities  of  our  own  government. 

In  this  manner  the  Porto  Rican  people  shall  be  able  to 
await  confidently  and  contented  the  final  determination  of 
the  political  status  of  their  Island,  with  the  complete  assur- 


PORTO   RICO   AS   A   NATIONAL   PROBLEM  363 

ance  that  whatever  that  solution  may  be,  it  shall  not  be 
inspired  in  selfish  motives  of  national  self  aggrandizement 
of  the  United  States,  in  disregard  of  the  legitimate  aspira- 
tions of  the  Porto  Ricans.  If  {his  is  done,  the  great  destiny 
of  this  great  nation  in  our  continent  will  be  fulfilled  perhaps 
a  century  earlier. 

I  will  not  finish  these  remarks  without  stating  that  I 
firmly  believe  in  the  great  sense  of  justice  and  fairness  of 
the  American  people,  and  although  public  opinion  has  not 
as  yet  crystallized  in  this  country  into  any  possible  form  of 
solution  of  the  Porto  Rican  problem,  I  have  an  inborn  con- 
viction, which  I  have  seen  corroborated  in  my  general  inter- 
course with  the  people  here,  that  Americans,  as  a  rule 
take  a  good  deal  of  interest  in  Porto  Rico,  and  wish  it  noth- 
ing but  happiness,  prosperity  and  progressive  development. 
In  this  sense,  I  am  sure  Porto  Ricans  reciprocate  with  the 
United  States,  and  just  let  me  say  this:  As  a  dependency, 
as  a  piece  of  territorial  property,  as  an  unincorporated  terri- 
tory, Porto  Rico  has  always  done  honor  to  the  United 
States,  and  whatever  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  Porto 
Rican  problem  may  be,  the  American  people  may  rest  as- 
sured that  Porto  Rico  will  always  love  and  do  honor  to  the 
United  States. 


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